A single paragraph in the latest India-Japan joint statement may not have received much traction given other regional and global issues dominating the discourse, but it does merit an attention in Islamabad and for good reason. During Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's recent visit to India, Tokyo for the first time in recent years explicitly associated Pakistan with cross-border terrorism in an official declaration with New Delhi. The joint statement noted that the two leaders "unequivocally and strongly condemned terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism from Pakistan." The language is significant because Japan has traditionally maintained a more balanced position on Indo-Pak disputes than many of New Delhi's other strategic partners. Even after the April 2025 Pahalgam attack, Tokyo condemned terrorism and expressed solidarity with India but deliberately avoided naming Pakistan.

The obvious question,........

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