India, Pakistan go into glacier talks with warm glow

ISLAMABAD, Thursday (Reuters) - India and Pakistan expressed optimism on the eve of talks to settle two bitter border disputes, including their standoff on the Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battlefield.

A ceasefire has been in place across the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, including Siachen, since November, 2003.

While a peace process begun in early 2004 by South Asia's nuclear rivals has been slow moving, last month's meeting in New Delhi between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has fed hopes of more progress.

"We have been given directions by (our) respective political leadership to move ahead. The atmosphere is definitely positive," Defence Secretary Ajai Vikram Singh, the head of the Indian delegation, told reporters on arrival at a military airbase at the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistani Defence Secretary Tariq Waseem Ghazi echoed that optimism, saying there were "positive signs".

The talks on Siachen, where the two armies have faced off for the last 21 years, and Sir Creek, a marshy estuary opening on to the Arabian Sea, will take place in Rawalpindi, close to Islamabad. The biggest achievement of the peace process to date has been the start of a bus service last month across a ceasefire line dividing the disputed region of Kashmir.

Uninhabitable and far from areas where an estimated 45,000 people have died in a 15-year-old anti-Indian insurgency, Siachen could easily be disconnected from the broader Kashmir dispute, analysts say.

Pakistan is also hoping a proposed visit next week by separatist leaders from Indian-held Kashmir will get a three-way dialogue going to decide Kashmir's future.

"We have decided to visit Pakistan on June 2 by bus. It will be a big step towards the resolution of the Kashmir dispute," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference said on Wednesday.

But the visit could be undermined by splits in the Hurriyat, the main political separatist alliance.