Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reversed his stand on talks with Pakistan, choosing to declare for the first time at the joint presser with US President Barack Obama here on Monday that talks and terror cannot go together. This is the exact line that his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee took at the crucial meeting with then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf in July 2004. He received a lot of flak for delinking talks and terrorism in his remarks at the NAM summit in Egypt's holiday resort Sharm El Sheikh in July last year but he stood by it and even defended yet another controversial decision in Havana to set up a joint anti-terror mechanism with Pakistan. Perhaps he also had on his mind the reaction of the Left Parties who are bent upon showing him to toe the US line, a stand that also suits the BJP to criticise the UPA government as he stressed in his opening remarks at the joint press conference to work as "equal partners" in a strategic relationship that will positively and decisively influence world peace, stability and progress.