NEW DELHI, 21 June — India said yesterday the infiltration of militants from Pakistani territory into its zone of Kashmir was almost over, signaling Islamabad is meeting a key condition to end a six-month military standoff between the nuclear powers. But analysts in Pakistan said the statement from India was a face-saving measure and a precursor to a military climbdown.
As the guns mostly stood silent on the disputed Kashmir border after a month of deadly skirmishes, Defense Minister George Fernandes said the flow of militants entering the Indian zone of the Himalayan territory was nearing its end. “The ground situation has not changed as far as the activities of the militants inside Kashmir are concerned,” Fernandes told reporters in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s summer capital.
“But the infiltration of militants has almost ended,” he said. “Whatever infiltration will remain, that will also end, I hope.” Fernandes said India has also observed a disruption in militant camps in Pakistani-administered Kashmir since Sept. 11, when Pakistan and India joined the global “coalition against terrorism” following the attacks on the United States.
“The training camps in Pakistan were permanent before Sept. 11, but now there are temporary camps. They are at one place today, and at another place tomorrow,” he said.
India also said it will ponder a request by Kashmir’s main separatist alliance that its leaders be allowed to visit Pakistani territory to negotiate a cease-fire in a quest to resolve the half-century dispute over the Himalayan province. “We will think it over,” Fernandes said.
On Wednesday, Abdul Gani Bhat, the chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, said in Srinagar members of the alliance wanted to travel to the third of Kashmir administered by Pakistan to meet with leaders of the “Mujahedeen.”
India and Pakistan have deployed one million troops to their borders since December, when the Parliament in New Delhi was attacked by gunmen allegedly affiliated to Pakistan-based militant groups active in Kashmir’s 13-year anti-Indian uprising. India demanded an end to the infiltration of such fighters across the rugged Himalayan frontier before withdrawing its troops.
Earlier this month, after saying there was evidence that infiltration was down, Indian lifted a measure taken in December, a ban on Pakistani planes flying over India. Pakistani analysts said India’s extremist Bharatiya Janata Parry leadership was looking for ways to pull back hundreds of thousands of troops on the borders with Pakistan while keeping its pride intact.
Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, the hawkish No. 2 in the Indian Cabinet, yesterday credited Britain, Russia and the United States for the lessening of tensions on the nuclear-armed subcontinent.
