NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 1 January — India’s acknowledgment for the first time that Pakistan’s anti-terrorist moves were "steps in the right direction" may have opened the door for a Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting in Katmandu. India welcomed yesterday Pakistan’s arrest of a top separatist leader and other militants, in the first sign of a breakthrough in the military face-off that has brought the South Asian nuclear rivals to the brink of war.
Arrest of Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader, on Sunday night is being viewed as a major step taken by Pakistan to defuse the escalating Indo-Pak tension. "If this information (that of arrests) is confirmed, then it is a step forward in correct direction," External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters after a 90-minute meeting of Cabinet committee on security chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Jaswant said, "We want Pakistan to pursue it vigorously until cross-border terrorism is eliminated."
He also opened the way for talks between Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of a regional summit in Nepal next week after India had fiercely resisted pressure from the United States and others for such a meeting.
"I will see how developments (go) in Katmandu," he said when asked about chances of a one-on-one meeting between the two leaders or between Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Abdul Sattar.
Pakistan announced it had arrested the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and more than a dozen members of Lashkar and the Jaish-e-Muhammad — the two Pakistan-based militant groups India has accused of carrying out the Dec. 13 attack on its parliament in New Delhi. More than 80 Muslim activists from a variety of groups have now been detained, Pakistani officials say, but it is not clear how many belong to each group.
India had dismissed previous measures taken by Pakistan as "cosmetic" but Jaswant said international pressure, arising from evidence furnished by India, seemed to have finally borne fruit. "As far as evidence of terrorist activities is concerned it has been provided in sufficient measure to the international community, and it is largely on that ground that Pakistan has now begun to act."
And in an interview with the BBC, a spokesman for Musharraf warned that any Indian military strike against Pakistan would be regarded as an act of war. "If India makes the mistake of launching an attack, air or ground, on anything on the land frontier, or violates the air frontier with Pakistan, Pakistan will respond in a reciprocal fashion," Maj. Gen. Rashi Qureshi said. "Pakistan will consider that an act of war."
Despite the obvious tensions, India said it was going ahead with its biggest military exercise in 15 years near the border with Pakistan.
