ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, 6 June — India and Pakistan locked in a dangerous standoff over Kashmir showed signs of easing tension yesterday as US President George W. Bush personally urged the nuclear-armed rivals to "choose the path of diplomacy," warning that the two countries could still "stumble" into war.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in New Delhi yesterday there was room for "many proposals" to help end the standoff while Pakistan denied rejecting India’s "breakthrough" offer of joint patrols in Kashmir, but repeated New Delhi must put the proposal at formal talks.
Vajpayee earlier said he would consider joint patrols of the Kashmir border but Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry initially dismissed the proposal adding the suggestion was "unlikely to work".
Pakistan’s Information Minister Nisar Memon told a press briefing later: "There appears to be a breakthrough in the minds of the Indians in that they have at least come forward."
"But I believe it has come forward with a matter which absolutely has to be brought to the table when we come for dialogue."
Vajpayee told reporters at the airport in the Indian capital after returning from an Asian security summit in Kazakhstan that "there are many proposals for verification of which joint patrolling is one".
Amidst the flurry of diplomatic activities launched by the international community to avert war between the nuclear rivals, US President George W. Bush yesterday urged Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf on telephone to "choose the path of diplomacy."
Bush "telephoned the leaders of India and Pakistan, urging them to take steps that will ease tensions in the region and reduce the risk of war," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. In his conversation with Musharraf, Bush reiterated "that the United States expects Pakistan to live up to the commitment Pakistan has made to end all support for terrorism," said the spokesman.
In his conversation with Vajpayee, Bush stressed "the need for India to respond with de-escalatory steps," said Fleischer.
The Indian premier at a press conference in Almaty ruled out any immediate prospects of peace talks with Islamabad and accused it of not keeping its word on halting cross-border militancy.
"If Pakistan decides that it will not support infiltration then both countries can set up a joint patrolling mechanism. This proposal can be considered," Vajpayee said.
"For verification, India and Pakistan can have an agreement of joint patrolling."
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said there were no signs cross-border infiltration has stopped.
Pakistan maintains there is no infiltration across the LoC that divides Kashmir and has called for observers, such as UN monitors, to be allowed to verify this.
"We refuse to accept the Indian claim of being the accusers as well as the judges. If they are the accusers, let there be somebody else to act as the judge," President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an interview. Musharraf said the world community was disappointed that its efforts to put India and Pakistan on the negotiating table failed.
"The reality of the tension between India and Pakistan is that India is continually threatening Pakistan with an attack and also refusing dialogue," he said in Almaty, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan news agency.
In the continuing diplomatic initiative, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will visit India and Pakistan in the coming days in a last-ditch effort to prevent the skirmishing in Kashmir from escalating into the fourth war between the old foes. Rumsfeld speaking in London said yesterday that "India and Pakistan "may well be looking for ways to tamp things down".
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday there is "nothing inevitable" about war in South Asia.
"There is nothing inevitable about war," Powell told US broadcaster National Public Radio.
In Moscow, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met yesterday to look for solutions to the crises in Kashmir and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the US, Britain and Canada strongly urged their citizens to leave India and Pakistan yesterday.
The US State Department upgraded its recent travel warnings for the two countries to say the government "strongly urges" its citizens to leave both countries.
