ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, 7 June — Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared yesterday he won’t start a war with India as diplomacy appeared to be making some headway in averting war between the nuclear-armed foes. But India rejected a Pakistani proposal for an international force to patrol the powder keg province of Kashmir and insisted that India and Pakistan monitor the territory on their own.
"President Musharraf has made it very clear that he is searching for peace and he won’t be the one to initiate a war," US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters in the Pakistan capital.
"I will be hopefully getting the same type of assurances in Delhi," he said.
Armitage arrived yesterday in Islamabad on a mission to try to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir that have sparked fears of a fourth war between the nuclear armed rivals. Armitage, who will be in the Indian capital today, said Musharraf’s comments were "a very good basis on which to proceed".
India and Pakistan have massed a million soldiers along their tense frontiers and have traded artillery and gunfire daily for the past three weeks in skirmishes that have killed scores of people and wounded hundreds of others.
Britain’s Independent newspaper reported yesterday the United States will propose a joint Anglo-American military monitoring force for Kashmir. Quoting defense and diplomatic sources, the report said US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would put forward the proposal when he visits the region next week. It said about 500 helicopter-borne troops could be used to patrol the disputed border. Foreign office and Defense Ministry officials declined to confirm the specifics of the story.
Armitage told reporters his talks with Musharraf also touched on how to monitor infiltrations of militants from Pakistan across the cease-fire line. "We’re discussing all sorts of monitoring mechanisms without any prejudices one way or another."
India’s National Security Adviser Brajesh Chandra Mishra, currently in Moscow, reiterated a proposal by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that the border be patrolled jointly by Pakistani and Indian forces. "This terrain is a very difficult one and only India and Pakistan know it inch by inch. Therefore it is more important that India and Pakistan monitor this territory on their own," Mishra told reporters in Moscow.
Mishra warned after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin that inexperienced international patrols could lead to innocent civilian casualties, citing victims of friendly fire during the US-led campaign in Afghanistan.
In New Delhi, Indian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupamam Rao yesterday ruled out any third-party monitoring of the borders of Kashmir while promoting the view that joint patrols with Pakistan were the only way to crush militancy.
Rao told a press conference that the upcoming visits of US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reflected the "fast-developing relationship" between the two countries. "We will discuss the proposal that we have put forward before Pakistan regarding the joint patrolling of Kashmir’s borders," she added.
Indian and Pakistani troops again traded heavy artillery and machine gun fire yesterday across their Kashmiri frontier, as front-line villages in Pakistan practiced civil defense drills and thousands of foreign residents in the two countries fled.
According to the state-run Pakistan television (PTV) Indian troops opened cross-border artillery fire into Pakistan-controlled Kashmir killing six civilians.
Nine more civilians were wounded in firing in Kotli, Abbaspur and Kohirata sectors of the state, PTV said.
India said there were "normal" heavy overnight exchanges of artillery, mortar and machine gun fire in about a dozen places along the Kashmir cease-fire line.
Fears that millions could be killed in the first atomic war between nuclear-armed states have prompted world leaders to step up diplomatic pressure to pull them back from the brink.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is scheduled to follow Armitage to Pakistan and India in the next few days.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said there were signs tensions between India and Pakistan were easing slightly, but it was too early for a summit between the two leaders. In an interview with National Public Radio, he said there were indications that Musharraf’s pledge to rein in militants in Kashmir would be carried out. "I think we have seen a little bit of improvement but the tension is still very high. This is still a very dangerous situation. It is still a crisis," Powell said. But he added: "There is nothing inevitable about war."
In another development, US President George W. Bush discussed the crisis pitting India and Pakistan against each other by telephone yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said. The conversation lasted roughly 20 minutes, White House national security spokesman Sean McCormack said.
