Reuters sources: RAW and ISI met in Dubai before the Kashmir ceasefire

In January 2021, senior officers from India’s Research and Analysis Wing and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence travelled to Dubai for talks facilitated by the United Arab Emirates, two people with knowledge of the meeting told Reuters. The encounter put the rivals’ spy services into a role normally reserved for diplomats: testing whether a private channel could cool a confrontation neither government was prepared to discuss in public.

On February 25, the two militaries announced a ceasefire along the Line of Control and other sectors, effective from midnight. Their directors-general of military operations agreed to observe existing accords and address issues that could disturb the border. Reuters later reported that the truce followed the January intelligence meeting and was holding in April. Its reporting did not establish that the Dubai session caused the military decision.

The public language shifted too. On March 18, Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, called for the countries to move towards cooperation, while insisting that India had to create a conducive environment in Kashmir. The overture mattered because Pakistan’s army has long dominated the country’s security and foreign policy, and the ISI sits inside that power structure.

Then came the rare acknowledgment of an outside hand. On April 15, the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, confirmed that his government was mediating between India and Pakistan. He described the goal as a functional relationship in which the nuclear-armed neighbours could speak to each other. He did not identify the intelligence officials or publish any account of what they agreed.

Both governments kept the spy channel in the shadows. India’s foreign ministry did not answer Reuters’ request for comment, and Pakistan’s military, which controls the ISI, also did not respond. Reuters’ sources described the effort as limited re-engagement, not a peace process, and said there was no grand plan to settle Kashmir. Neither Reuters report contained public minutes, a participant list or an agreement from the Dubai meeting.

The episode revealed the paradox of intelligence-led diplomacy: agencies built to guard secrets can become the channel when governments cannot speak openly. RAW and ISI did not produce a public settlement. Reuters’ reporting supports a narrower conclusion: their officers met before the military truce, in a process one source described as re-engagement rather than peace.