To no one’s surprise, the meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and S.M. Krishna respectively, on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly gathering has failed to break the impasse in relations between the two countries.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, the Indian foreign minister demanded ‘concrete and effective steps’ against militant groups and added: ‘We remain concerned about the threat which groups and individuals in Pakistan continue to pose to us.’ For his part, at a separate news conference Mr Qureshi repeated the Pakistani position: ‘We cannot confine our discussions to one issue, that is, terrorism at Mumbai.’ A familiar story by now. Mr Krishna also appeared to shoot down talk of resuming back-channel talks between the two countries: ‘When front channel is open, what is the need of back channel? We have understood each other. Our position has been understood.’ With no further talks between senior officials of the countries scheduled (though there is a possibility of the prime ministers meeting during the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad in November), it seems the freeze in relations is set to continue for the foreseeable future.

So what is Pakistan to do now? There’s not much more that it can or should do. Cooperation and the exchange of dossiers on the Mumbai attacks is continuing, and rightly so. Pakistan has committed to and is in the process of prosecuting those involved in the attacks and that should be seen through to its logical end. But the internal dynamics of India’s politics are preventing movement on the peace process, and there is little to nothing that Pakistan can do to change that.

Mr Qureshi suggested in his press conference that he is willing to travel to India himself if that could help change attitudes there towards engagement with Pakistan, but that is frankly unadvisable. The Pakistani government has already made all the gestures necessary to indicate its willingness to talk and sending the top Pakistani diplomat to face a likely barracking and hostile reception in India would be an exercise in futility.

Amidst the frustration and angst, perhaps the foremost lesson for Pakistan is this: when Pakistan and India finally do re-engage — and this is inevitable given the outstanding issues between the two countries — Pakistan should demand that the big issues, Kashmir, water, Afghanistan, etc, should be addressed up front. There is little point any more in going ‘small’ and dealing with peripheral issues first because years of the composite dialogue have proved that engagement on those issues counts for nought.