The Pakistani and Indian Interior Secretaries met in Delhi on Tuesday for a round of talks which seemed focused on an Indian agenda which did not take any account of Pakistani concerns, and did not give it the opportunity even of expressing those concerns. Though the talks did not mention it, not according to the final statement by the two sides, issued in the form of a communiqu after the meeting, the timing made the talks a kind of precursor to the Gilani-Manmohan meeting in Mohali on Wednesday, but it seems no one took the opportunity of preparing for it at the Interior-Secretary level. One of the main showpieces of the meeting was the agreement to set up another hotline to facilitate the exchange of information with India, which seems an agenda item meant more to assuage American sensitivities rather than because either India or Pakistan are deeply affected by this. Also, it gives India what it has long sought, a route through which it could find a path into Kashmir, and any help given by Pakistan to those engaged in the Kashmir freedom struggle, which Indian security forces are trying to suppress by brute force. The two sides also agreed to adopt the Commission mechanism for the Mumbai attacks, and though the dates of India sending the Commission was not set, obviously, India was more interested in the subject, and there was not enough discussion of the recent revelations in the Samjhota Express case, where so many Pakistanis were killed. The Indian attempt to have the case suppressed seems to have succeeded, and there was certainly not even a Pakistani commission to go to India in connection with the case. Other measures agreed upon, relating to drugs and visits by the antidrug czars of both countries, showed that the relationship was not that of normalcy between two neighbouring states. However, there was no discussion of the root problem dividing the two countries, that of Kashmir, its illegal and forcible occupation by India, and its refusal to allow the Kashmiri people to exercise their right of self-determination, despite the solemn promises made by the Indian state to the world community. There are water and frontier disputes flowing directly from this. Because of this, other contentious issues, like Indian instigation of Baloch unrest, and the Afghan diplomatic presence it was using to achieve this, were also not discussed, even though without these problems being solved, and that too in a just manner, there could be little or no point to meetings such as those between the Indian Home Secretary and the Pakistani Interior Secretary.