Indian Premier Narendra Modi is known for his out-of-the-box thinking, particularly in the foreign policy arena and even more so in context of Pakistan. Modi used a similar approach this Sunday when his National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met his Pakistani counterpart Gen. Nasir Janjua in a neutral third country like Thailand to break the impasse in India-Pakistan relations.

The four-hour meeting between the two advisers in a Bangkok hotel was the first such on-record engagement between India and Pakistan, which significantly took place in a third country. Perhaps this was the only way in which the two nuclear-armed neighbors could have broken the logjam in their bilateral ties.

Modi must have realized that this was perhaps the only way in which he could have effectively reached out to Pakistan. And he did it perfectly. As an obvious and immediate result of this unconventional bit of diplomacy by Modi, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj was in Pakistan within 48 hours of the Bangkok meeting. Swaraj’s visit to Pakistan, even though it is for a multilateral event like the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan, is a big event in India-Pakistan bilateral ties. It connotes India’s desire and sincerity toward building bridges with Pakistan, a long-term approach considering that Pakistan is scheduled to host the next SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) in 2015. Though no dates are announced for the summit, it is likely that the event may be held in July 2015.

If all goes well, Modi may well be traveling to Pakistan for the SAARC summit. That would be the first time in over a decade when an Indian premier would be traveling to Pakistan. Notably, Manmohan Singh had never visited Pakistan, either for bilateral or multilateral engagement, during his entire tenure of 10 years as the Indian prime minister.

Swaraj’s visit is the first ministerial trip from India to Pakistan since the Modi government took over on May 26, 2014. The last foreign minister-level visit from India to Pakistan was in 2012. She made a positive start when she met her Pakistani counterpart Sartaz Aziz at his banquet for the Heart of Asia conference delegates and said: “I have come with the message that ties between the two countries should be good and move forward.”

Modi’s decision first to send his adviser to Bangkok for a substantive meeting with his Pakistani counterpart and following it up by sending his foreign minister to Islamabad is a mature decision, which needs to be applauded.

One, he cannot be unaware of the fact that he is yielding a lot of ground to Pakistan and, in fact, veritably reversing his government’s Pakistan policy. Pakistan has been asking for meetings at the level of national security advisers as well as foreign secretaries.

Earlier, the foreign secretary-level engagement between the two sides had been unilaterally called off by India as Pakistan had crossed the Modi government’s red line of engaging with the Kashmiri separatists.

Then in August this year, the two NSAs were to meet but could not as Pakistan insisted that the Kashmir issue too forms part of the agenda, not just terror. With the Bangkok meet, Pakistan’s both demands were met as the two NSAs were accompanied by their foreign secretaries as well. Thus it was a two-in-one meeting. The presence of the two foreign secretaries at the NSAs’ meeting in Bangkok indicated that the strategic establishments of the two countries also had support from their diplomatic establishments as well.

Thus the Modi government stooped to conquer. It did not bother to concede brownie points to Pakistan. On Pakistan’s part, Islamabad behaved maturely by not making a song and dance about the Indian concession and instead took it as business as usual and went ahead with the task of repairing bilateral ties.

The Bangkok meeting of the two NSAs was significant in another manner too. It underlined the fact by way of a joint press statement that the two sides discussed the Kashmir issue as well, apart from other host of issues. This was another big concession from the Modi government to Pakistan.

The Bangkok meeting signaled the Modi government’s intent to climb down from its maximalist position during the Ufa (Russia) summit between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in July where the Indians had cleverly managed to keep Kashmir out of the stated points of discussions between the two prime ministers.

The Ufa process gave virtually nothing to Pakistan and inevitably the Sharif government negated it.

But in Bangkok the Modi government did some very important course correction and included the Kashmir issue in the agenda.

All this is very healthy for India-Pakistan bilateral relations and Swaraj’s brief visit to Pakistan should go a long way in repairing ties. It is a good new beginning but a long and tortuous road lies ahead of the two South Asian adversaries