Ajit Doval. AFP file

Islamabad, January 1

National security advisers of India and Pakistan held a “secret” meeting in Thailand where the tone and tenor of India’s NSA Ajit Doval was “friendly and positive”, a senior Pakistani official said on Monday.A Pakistan national security division official, on condition of anonymity, said the meeting between Pakistan’s NSA Lt Gen Nasser Khan Janjua (retd) and Doval took place in Thailand on December 27, ‘The Dawn’ newspaper reported.“The meeting was good. Doval’s tone and tenor was friendly and positive,” the official disclosed. The official maintained that he was briefed about the Indo-Pak meeting.He was told that the meeting was “useful”. The report also quoted the official as saying that the interaction might help in restarting some sort of engagement at the diplomatic level as well.However, there was no word–officially or unofficially–from the Indian side.The meeting, which appeared to be pre-decided, came two days after Indian death-row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav met his family in Islamabad on December 25.

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The Jadhav-family meeting became the latest flashpoint in already strained Indo-Pak relations with Pakistan terming its decision to allow Jadhav’s family to travel to Pakistan to meet him as a humanitarian gesture and India accusing it of violating mutual understanding.New Delhi also hit out at Pakistan, asserting that the Indian national appeared coerced and under considerable stress during the tightly controlled interaction and also accused Pakistan of disregarding cultural and religious sensibilities of family members on the pretext of security.Jadhav, who was captured in March last year, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying, an accusation that India has dismissed as concocted.New Delhi says Jadhav was kidnapped in Iran where he had legitimate business interests, and brought to Pakistan. To save Jadhav, India moved the International Court of Justice, which ordered Pakistan in May to stay his execution.It was not the first meeting between the two NSAs in a third country.In December 2015 also, the two NSAs, along with the two foreign secretaries, had met in Bangkok, which was not revealed from both the countries till after the meeting. PTI