Deja vu or something new?

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Yes, I know most of you are going to roll your eyes - not India-Pakistan again???? But here it is, I am on board the Prime Minister's plane Air India-1 headed for France and Egypt, and all that anyone wants to talk about is Pakistan... his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart on Thursday.

I think it's time someone did a deep analysis of the impact of India-Pakistan relations on every multilateral summit they attend - from the UN General Assembly, to SAARC, to the Commonwealth, even to smaller ones like the BRIC summit in Russia last month, or the Foreign Minister's pre G-8 and the one that's coming up this week at the Non Aligned Summit at Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh.

Each one of the summits have lofty vision statements on poverty alleviation, climate change and nuclear disarmament- but the statements are relegated to a post-script, while that meeting on the sidelines grabs the headlines. And so on, to the next summit. For journalists covering the constantly fractured ties between New Delhi and Islamabad it's very 'been there, done that'.

So I guess I am not surprised when we are briefed by officials on the flight talking about "Pakistan's obligation to dismantle the infrastructure of terror" or how the "perpetrators must be brought to justice", essentially it would seem obvious that India and Pakistan are still only talking about talking.

Or not?

Amidst all the yawns and the solemn shaking of heads- we seem to have missed the point that all is not the same. That slowly, painfully slowly, India and Pakistan have changed the way we deal with each other....veering quite firmly away from the spectre of war to the spectre of "let's sleep on it".

Look at some of the facts on the ground- for the past 6 years Indian and Pakistani forces have largely held to a ceasefire, for more than a decade Indian and Pakistani diplomats have had structured talks as a part of the Composite bilateral dialogue, and we have now been through at least two major elections in Jammu and Kashmir without the customary cross-border violence.

What's more Islamabad seems to have made it clear it doesn't want to fish in troubled waters, and each time the Kashmir Valley erupts- whether it was over the Amarnath board last year, or the Shopian deaths this year, we no longer hear an outcry from across the border on human rights violations. For its part, New Delhi seems to have held its line too- every terror attack is not followed by a condemnation of Pakistan's government, but instead a measured and more mature demand for an investigation.

In the Mumbai attacks case too, much needs to be done by Pakistan. It must take a firm stand on Hafeez Saeed, who besides being the instigator of so much violence against India, poses a real threat to Pakistan itself as a consummate recruiter for the 'Armed Jehad'. Much needs to be done- but you can't deny, a surprisingly large number of steps have been taken.

Pakistan has now admitted that not one but at least three of the Mumbai attackers were of Pakistani origin (unprecedented), it has kept in custody five men including Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhvi, even tracking the banking transactions and boats that facilitated the Mumbai attacks.

And while wireless intercepts still show that terror's structure remains strong in Pakistan, surely President Zardari's open admission last week the Pakistan had armed the very groups that threaten us now counts for something.

On his trip to Egypt Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon are likely to ask for more...legitimately so. But until we recognize that it's not all déjà vu but, perhaps something new...the leadership of these two next-door neighbours will be condemned to travel to exotic locations half-way around the world in order to meet.

With us in tow....