Rivals India, Pakistan agree over missiles
NEW DELHI – India and Pakistan made progress toward ending five decades of enmity by agreeing Monday to notify each other before missile tests, open new consulates and try to end a deadly dispute over the Himalayan enclave of Kashmir.
“Both sides are committed, both sides are determined, both sides have the goodwill,” Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar told New Delhi TV after six hours of talks with his Indian counterpart, Foreign Secretary Shashank, who uses only one name.
“As long as we are determined, as long as we are clear, I am hopeful that downstream maybe something will come out of it.”
The agreements by Khokhar and Shashank were part of a process begun last year with the goal of a summit this year by the leaders of India and Pakistan to resolve conflicting claims to Kashmir. The South Asian neighbors have fought two full-scale wars and a 1999 border clash over the Himalayan enclave.
Khokhar brought an invitation from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for new Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has pledged to remain on the peace path paved by ousted Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose Hindu-nationalist party lost elections last month.
The foreign secretaries reiterated that the ongoing discussions “would lead to peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides,” said a joint statement.
Jammu and Kashmir is the formal name of India’s portion of Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in this predominantly Hindu country. Islamic militants have waged a bloody insurgency since 1989 for independence of the beautiful Himalayan territory or its merger with Pakistan. More than 65,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict.
Cross-border infiltration by armed guerrillas from Pakistani territory typically rises in the summer after winter snows have melted. Those crossings have declined somewhat in number, according to police in Indian Kashmir, due in part to a new barbed-wire fence along the 460-mile Line of Control dividing Kashmir.
In Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, senior Border Security Force officer K. Srinivasan said at least 120 guerrillas had sneaked into Indian Kashmir since snows began melting, half the number that infiltrated during the same period last year.
The countries also will work toward a formal agreement on notifying each other before testing missiles. This follows an accord last week to set up a nuclear hot line to reduce the risk of war.
The neighbors have been abiding by an informal agreement to notify each other at least 24 hours ahead of a missile test launch. But India has sought a formal pact that would commit each side to specify the missile size and test location, defense analyst Brahma Chellaney said.
The South Asian neighbors also will open consulates in Karachi, Pakistan, and Bombay, India, and restore their embassies to full staff. Personnel was reduced after a December 2001 deadly attack on India’s Parliament led to a break in diplomatic relations and an end to all transportation links.
India says Islamic insurgents still cross from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir into Indian territory to commit terrorist acts.
Pakistan says it doesn’t allow terrorists on its soil but acknowledges giving political and diplomatic support to what it calls Kashmiri freedom fighters. More than 65,000 people, mostly Muslim civilians, have been killed in the fighting.
Asked at a news conference whether Pakistan had explained to India the reasons for continued infiltrations, Kahn said, “We owe an explanation to nobody. We don’t give explanations.”
The main Hezb-ul Mujahedeen militant group, which is based in Pakistan, welcomed the talks but said rebel attacks would not stop.
“It is good that Pakistan and India have started talking directly about Kashmir,” the group’s spokesman, Salim Hashmi, told The Associated Press from an undisclosed location. “Mujahedeen are continuing their activities in Indian Kashmir. … Armed struggle is going along. There should be no condition for it to stop for the talks.”
Khokhar also met pro-independence Kashmiri leaders from Indian-held Kashmir on Saturday and Sunday.
India controls 46 percent of Kashmir while Pakistan holds 35 percent. China controls the remaining 19 percent, some of it captured from India in a 1962 war.
Saturday’s resignation of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali was expected to have little impact on the peace process because President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is the nation’s ultimate power broker and wields control over such matters.