C_J
The problem is that if you don’t enter into a dialogue, you’ve ultimately got a very narrow set of options that are likely draw you closer towards conflict. I suspect that even if a country says it isn’t expressly in discussion with another, they will still have backchannels open to maintain the conversation behind closed doors, if required.
A lot of people said that the British Government would never dialogue with the IRA, that there would never be any accord with Iran and the more recent example of speaking to ISIS, but that is what happened.
