NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 10 June — Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have toned down their rhetoric of war with a senior government source in Delhi confirming yesterday that India is in the process of formulating a strategy to ease tensions with Pakistan.
India will announce measures in the next two days ahead of a visit this week by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in an American-led drive to pull the two countries back from the brink. “There is a menu of options which we are looking at,” the source said, on condition of anonymity.
These included increasing India’s diplomatic representation in Islamabad, lifting a ban on Pakistani aircraft using Indian airspace and restoring bus and train links.
India pruned its embassy staff and took other measures against Islamabad in December following an attack on its Parliament it blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced in Estonia late Saturday that India had pledged to make “military gestures” and take diplomatic action to ease tensions with Pakistan.
Pakistan welcomed India’s reported decision to take steps within the next few days to defuse tension.
“Pakistan welcomes reports that India was considering military and diplomatic gestures to de-escalate tension between the two countries over the Kashmir issue,” Information Minister Nisar Memon said.
“It seems the situation is heading toward improvement,” state television quoted him as saying. Memon also expressed hopes that the two countries would be able to begin a dialogue on “all important issues including Kashmir,” the cause of two wars between the nuclear-armed rivals since their independence in 1947.
President Musharraf told Malaysia’s New Sunday Times newspaper in an interview: “I think the chance of war is minimal.” He said the long dispute with India over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir remained an obstacle to peace, but “the threat of war in the last four or five days has diminished”.
“The response that I’m expecting is de-escalation followed by initiation of a dialogue on Kashmir,” Musharraf said.
Rumsfeld, in Kuwait yesterday at the start of a tour of Gulf Arab states, is due to visit Pakistan and India in the next few days to keep up pressure on the two neighbors with specific proposals for a way out of the crisis.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 — two of them over Kashmir. The United States, Britain, Japan and at least a dozen other countries advised nationals living in Pakistan and India to leave last week, a step that India’s leading industry body yesterday said amounted to a form of economic sanctions.
In Kashmir, police said Indian and Pakistani troops traded heavy artillery fire, injuring three Indian soldiers, two policemen and four civilians. A state-owned television tower was damaged.
Indian soldiers also engaged a group of what were believed to be heavily-armed Al-Qaeda fighters in the far north of the disputed state, killing two of them, a Defense Ministry source told AFP.
Indian and Pakistani newspapers yesterday interpreted the latest statements as a sign that war clouds were receding.
“Finally, peace gets a chance,” read a headline in the Indian business newspaper The Economic Times.
Pakistan’s respected Dawn newspaper said tempers were cooling on both sides. “Both Islamabad and New Delhi should be thankful to world capitals for making concerted efforts to defuse the tension in the subcontinent.” the newspaper said.
Financial analysts and fund managers saw Indian shares gaining ground on reduced tensions, though they cautioned that both sides needed to do more to defuse the crisis. “If there are more positive signs, the markets should be buoyed during the week. But one thing that could sour the pitch is another militant attack,” said U.R. Bhat, chief investment officer at JF Asset management.
