NEW DELHI, 5 June 2003 — Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has said peace talks with Pakistan must include the dispute over all of Kashmir, including the third controlled by Pakistan, local news agencies reported yesterday.
“If we are to start talks with Pakistan, then we have to start with that part of Kashmir which is under Pakistani occupation,” the Press Trust of India quoted him as saying. India controls almost a half of Kashmir and China also holds a small percentage.
Vajpayee also said that talks between the two nuclear-armed rivals could only begin after Islamabad cracked down on Muslim militants operating from its soil in Kashmir. “Talks can start only after cross-border terrorism ends,” PTI quoted Vajpayee as saying.
India and Pakistan have fought two of three wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir and went to the brink of a fourth last year after a bloody attack on the Indian parliament which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants.
Vajpayee launched a new peace initiative with Pakistan in April, restoring full diplomatic relations and plans to resume bus and air links as a prelude to peace talks. Pakistan denies sponsoring the revolt in Indian Kashmir which has killed more than 38,000 people, saying it gives only moral support to the Kashmiri people in what it calls their struggle for self-determination.
Analysts say the nuclear rivals are moving toward talks at the level of senior diplomats and will then work their way up to a summit later in the year. Despite the thaw, Pakistani and Indian forces have continued to trade fire over the line of control dividing Kashmir.
Pakistan said at least nine people were killed and six wounded on Tuesday by Indian firing and yesterday police said a woman was killed and another person injured.
Raja Ghulam Sarwar, superintendent of police in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, said the 20-year-old woman died in Sughna, a village 60 km (37 miles) to the southeast.
He said a man was also wounded in a nearby village and the firing was continuing. “They are using mortars, artillery and machine guns,” he said.
India says its troops fire into Pakistani Kashmir to prevent infiltration by Muslim militants.
Meanwhile, a retired army general yesterday took over as India’s top representative in restive Kashmir as six people died in the state’s ongoing rebellion, officials said. Security forces were deployed in strength as Lt. Gen. S.K. Sinha was administered the oath of office as Indian Kashmir’s 11th governor in the state’s summer capital Srinagar.
Meanwhile, the state’s bloody insurgency continued with two militants and an Indian Army soldier killed in a four-hour long gunbattle in the village of Hari Safeedah in southern Poonch district, a police spokesman said yesterday.
An Indian Army soldier was killed and another injured near Banihal township, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of here in a land mine explosion triggered by suspected rebels, police said. Police said suspected rebels killed a Muslim civilian in southern Doda district, while Indian troops shot dead a militant in Rajouri district.
In Bandipora township of northern Baramulla district an Indian army soldier and an informer were injured in a landmine explosion Wednesday.
Sinha said the appointment was like a homecoming for him after previously serving in Kashmir for 12 years. “Over the years, militancy has spread its tentacles, but it has no local support,” he said. Sinha replaced G.C. Saxena, former head of India’s premier intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing. Saxena completed his five-year term last month.
