Archives

NEW DELHI, Friday (Reuters,AFP) India has decided to give Pakistan two months to cut back cross-border "terrorism" before deciding on possible military action, an Indian newspaper reported on Friday.

The influential Hindustan Times daily said the decision was taken at a meeting of top security officials chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Kashmir, at the centre of the lastest military standoff between the nuclear rivals and fears of a new war.

"Sources said a decision to begin a war against Pakistan would depend on how it acted in the next two months," it said, adding the "war option would be closed" if there were no violent disruptions to Kashmir state polls due late in the year.

In a softening of his rhetoric during a visit to Kashmir, Vajpayee on Thursday said he saw clear skies ahead rather than war clouds, but warned lightning could strike any time.

Meanwhile International pressure piled on Pakistan to halt rebel raids into India where Vajpayee, toning down bellicose rhetoric, was preparing to head for the hills on Friday for a three-day break.

EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten, who flew into New Delhi from the Pakistan capital on Thursday, was due to meet Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to discuss ways of easing tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan's capital went on a war footing but in a sign tension was easing, its stock market surged more than six percent in early trade as investors took heart from Vajpayee's softer stand.

Patten is the first high-profile diplomat to visit New Delhi since the latest outbreak of tension, triggered by a militant attack on an Indian army camp last week in which more than 30 people were killed, most of them wives and children of soldiers.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrives in the region next week, while U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will visit from June 4 as part of U.S. and European Union efforts to head off war.

Pakistan made a fresh, explicit pledge on Wednesday to stop cross-border militant attacks but Vajpayee dismissed the announcement, saying previous promises had not been honoured.

"I am disappointed," Vajpayee said in Srinagar, Kashmir's main city, on Thursday. "Words must be matched by deeds -- that has not happened."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern at the "alarming rise in tension" and urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to take "vigorous action" to implement his commitment to curb terrorism.

"The secretary-general considers it essential that the logic and language of war be replaced by the logic and language of peace," said Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard.

"He is increasingly concerned by the alarming rise in tension between India and Pakistan."

Canada also waded into the crisis telling Pakistan it had to do more to stop guerrilla raids into Indian Kashmir.

"Sometimes lightning can strike even when the sky is clear. I hope there will be no lightning," Vajpayee told a news conference in Kashmir on Thursday, a day after telling his front-line troops to prepare for battle.

Vajpayee's three-day break in the hill resort of Manali in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh was being interpreted by some as a signal war was not imminent.

Meanwhile Indian and Pakistani forces traded heavy fire overnight in disputed Kashmir, India said.

A civilian died and three were hurt late on Thursday during heavy mortar and machinegun fire across the Line of Control, a ceasefire line dividing Kashmir, about 255 km (160 miles) north of Jammu, winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, a defence official said, adding firing occured in several other places.

Several people have been killed since the nuclear neighbours resumed exchanging heavy fire about a week ago amid rising tension over Kashmir and fears of war.

Earlier India has been strengthening its strategic air and ground defences along its borders with Pakistan in the disputed region of Kashmir following a sharp rise in tension between the two neighbours, a senior army source said Thursday.

"Many battery units, including Bofors guns, are being positioned in Kashmir to give a befitting reply to Pakistani shelling along our borders," the source said.

According to the army source, the battery units being moved this week were likely to be deployed somewhere along the Poonch and Rajouri sectors of the Line of Control (LoC) -- the de facto border between India and Pakistan.

About 1,000 artillery unit personnel currently on leave have been asked to report to their regiments immediately, he added.

The Indian Air Force, the world's fourth largest, also went on alert as India's mobilisation gained momentum this week.

"All seven airbases in Kashmir are on high alert," a military source said on condition of anonymity.

New Delhi ordered five missile-carrying naval warships into the Arabian Sea on Wednesday. Four of the vessels are armed with missiles.

Media reports said India had already moved batteries of surface-to-surface Prithvi (Earth) missiles from their distant southern Indian facilities to its western borders with Pakistan after the December 13 attack on parliament.

The missiles have a range of 150 kilometres (93 miles) and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager