NEW DELHI, 25 November 2003 — India reacted cautiously yesterday to Pakistan’s announcement of a unilateral cease-fire along the volatile frontier dividing Kashmir, saying it welcomed the overture but that infiltration by Pakistan-based militants must end.
Outlining India’s answer to Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s offer Sunday of a unilateral cease-fire on the military Line of Control dividing the disputed region of Kashmir, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna also suggested extending the truce to the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield.
The announcements were a small step forward in improved ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who just last year came close to war.
“We welcome the announcement ... of a unilateral cease-fire,” Sarna said at a briefing yesterday. “We will respond positively to this initiative.”
But if there is to be enduring peace in the Himalayan region, Pakistan must stop militants based in its territory from crossing into Indian-controlled Kashmir, he said.
Pakistan yesterday welcomed the Indian response.
“I am happy,” Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters in Islamabad. “I am told that the government of India has decided to respond positively.”
On Sunday, Jamali said his country’s soldiers would stop firing along the border beginning on Eid Al-Fitr. He did not make clear how long the cease-fire would last.
Sarna said that “in order to establish a full cease-fire on a durable basis, there must be an end to infiltration from across the Line of Control.”
Pakistan denies it gives material aid to Kashmiri militants but says it supports their 14-year fight to win its independence.
“India has said repeatedly that the infiltrators are able to infiltrate with ease into Kashmir because the Pakistani army provides a cover through the barrage of military fire,” Kasuri said yesterday.
“Now this is the Indian argument. Now if Pakistan is willing to stop the firing, what does it prove? So it proves Pakistan’s good intentions — that we have no desire to infiltrate. So India should welcome it whole-heartedly without any reservation.”
A top Indian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while India welcomed Islamabad’s cease-fire offer, India could not tie itself down by declaring a cease-fire while infiltration continued.
Saying India wanted to push the peace process along, Sarna also proposed a cease-fire along what is called the “Actual Ground Position Line,” the vaguely demarcated line that separates the two armies on the Siachen Glacier, which at 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) above sea level is the world’s highest battlefield.
Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said New Delhi’s response was “very, very positive”.
Yesterday’s developments mark another incremental step in a series that New Delhi and Islamabad began taking in April to restore normal relations.
In Srinagar, Kashmiris welcomed the prospect of any halt to hostilities across one of the world’s most militarized frontiers.
“It is a very good thing that has happened before Eid,” said senior pro-independence leader Shabir Shah yesterday.
“It can turn out to be a major confidence-building measure before two countries sit around a table with Kashmiris to resolve the Kashmir issue,” said Shah, who has spent more than two decades in different jails for espousing Kashmir’s independence.
“The step can definitely lead to peace along the borders,” he said.
“Both countries are using the Kashmir region for target practice,” said Abdul Aziz, an engineer in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir. “I wish sanity prevails on both the countries who treat us like sitting ducks.”
Seventy-year-old Salam-u-Din, a retired government worker, is one of the thousands of Kashmiris forced from his home along the Line of Control and now living in Srinagar.
“We have been living under a constant trauma for over five decades due to this shelling,” he said.
One Indian analyst said the two sides were slowly laying the ground for talks with their proposals and counter-proposals for greater contact between their divided peoples.
“There is some movement forward,” said G. Parthasarthy, a former envoy to Pakistan. “These proposals lay the basis for some form of engagement, if not a dialogue, on the various offers.”
Jamali also said Pakistan was ready to discuss an Indian offer to start a bus service between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, as well as a ferry service between Bombay and Karachi.
Sarna welcomed that yesterday and proposed “immediate” technical level talks” to quickly restore the transportation routes.
(Additional input from agencies)
