India, Pakistan held two talks

India and Pakistan are back to doing the thing they often do when formal diplomacy is frozen — talking unofficially through people who still know the system from the inside. That is the news here. Retired generals and former diplomats from both sides have held at least two quiet meetings in the last three months, even though official contact has stayed shut since the May 2025 fighting tied to Operation Sindoor. At the same time, China has now publicly acknowledged that it gave Pakistan on-site technical support during that conflict, which changes the backdrop in an important way. ### What actually happened? The meetings were not government-to-government negotiations. They were back-channel sessions involving retired Indian and Pakistani military officers and former diplomats — one in Qatar and one in another Asian capital that was not named publicly. The point was not a dramatic breakthrough. It was to reopen a line of communication after a year in which official dialogue had basically gone dark. (indianexpress.com) ### Why use retired officials? Because they can say things active governments cannot say out loud. This is the logic of Track 2 diplomacy — unofficial talks among former officials, security experts, and diplomats who still carry institutional memory but do not formally bind the state. South Asia has used this format before when public politics made direct engagement too costly. The whole value is deniability mixed with realism. (indianexpress.com) ### Why now? Because the gap is getting dangerous. The May 2025 crisis showed how quickly a terror attack, military retaliation, and airpower signaling can push both countries toward a larger confrontation. If official channels stay closed, even a small future incident becomes harder to contain. These meetings seem aimed less at “peace talks” and more at making sure the next crisis does not run on autopilot. (theweek.in) ### What was Operation Sindoor? It was the military confrontation in May 2025 that followed the April 22 Pahalgam attack. India launched Operation Sindoor against what it said were terrorist targets in Pakistan, and the episode turned into a four-day conflict. Since then, formal bilateral contact has remained largely frozen. That is what makes even limited unofficial engagement noteworthy. (indianexpress.com) ### Where does China enter the picture? This is the part that raises the stakes. Chinese state media aired comments from Zhang Heng — an engineer tied to AVIC’s Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute — saying China provided on-site technical support to Pakistan during the 2025 conflict. The support was tied to keeping Chinese-made systems, especially Pakistan’s J-10CE fighters, operating effectively under wartime conditions. (indianexpress.com) ### Why does that matter so much? Because it makes the military picture less purely bilateral. India has long assumed close China-Pakistan defense coordination, but a public acknowledgment of on-site wartime support is a stronger signal than quiet suspicion. Basically, any future India-Pakistan flare-up now looks more entangled with China’s defense role, even if Beijing is not a direct combatant. (indianexpress.com) ### Are these talks a real thaw? Probably not in the big, headline-grabbing sense. There is no sign of restored formal dialogue, no announced roadmap, and no public political reset. But that misses the point. In this region, back channels are often less about reconciliation than about building a brake pedal before the next emergency. (indianexpress.com) ### Bottom line The story is not that India and Pakistan are suddenly making peace. It is that people who understand how crises spiral are quietly trying to rebuild a minimum safety valve — just as China’s admitted role makes the next spiral potentially more complicated. (indianexpress.com)