India, Pakistan start talks over contested glacier
INDIA: Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan started a fresh round
of talks on Tuesday over the Siachen glacier in Kashmir, where thousands
of troops are holed up in freezing temperatures in a costly standoff.
The two-day talks in New Delhi over the world's highest battlefield
follow local media reports in the past few months that the two sides
were inching towards a blueprint for a troop pullout, though officials
are tightlipped.
Both sides fielded large teams of bureaucrats and military officers,
headed by their respective defence secretaries.
The Siachen dialogue - part of a wide-ranging peace process - comes a
day ahead of a peace conference involving Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and some Kashmiri separatist groups in Srinagar, the main city in
India's Jammu and Kashmir state.
Though diplomatic, commercial, sporting and transport links between
India and Pakistan have improved since their peace process started in
January 2004, they have made little headway over Kashmir, the cause of
two of their three wars.
A key sticking point over Siachen is seen to be India's demand that
troop positions be marked on the ground and on a map as evidence in case
the area is occupied by Pakistan after a pullout deal is reached.
The region has witnessed no fighting since late 2003, when a
ceasefire came into place on the militarised Kashmir frontier.
But analysts and Indian military officials say New Delhi's security
establishment remains distrustful of the Pakistan army.
They point out that in 1999, Pakistan-backed Islamist infiltrators
occupied the Kargil heights in northern Indian Kashmir, and India lost
hundreds of troops before re-occupying the mountains after bitter
fighting and a near war.
"Kargil made it very clear that if you leave any part of your
territory undefended, you cannot rule out the possibility of the
Pakistanis coming in," former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan G.
Parthasarathy told Reuters.
But Pakistani analysts say Islamabad is uneasy about marking
positions, fearing it will legitimise India's hold in Siachen.
Hopes of forward movement were raised last year after Singh said he
wanted to convert Siachen into a "peace mountain" as both sides tried to
push forward their cautious peace process, complicated by an Islamist
revolt in Kashmir.
New Delhi says the insurgency is aided by militants from Pakistan,
which Islamabad is not doing enough to stop.
Analysts do not expect a breakthrough in the third round of Siachen
talks since January 2004 but say dialogue is a good way of building
trust over the region.
"If nobody is shooting and killing each other; is that not a gain?"
Parthasarathy said.
"These talks help further to stabilise the situation." New Delhi,
Tuesday, Reuters |