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Manvendra Singh
NEW DELHI, Nov 6: On a day when Islamabad rediscovered the Shimla Agreement, lost a bunker and a cookhouse in the southern sector of the Siachen region, and accepted for the first time that Indian troops are sitting atop the Saltoro range, Pakistan rejected New Delhi's offer for a ceasefire in the high-altitude war zone.
As part of the ongoing composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, the two defence secretaries led their delegations to a meeting in South Block today to discuss the Siachen issue but made no headway in coming to a resolution of the conflict. There was agreement, however, ``to continue discussions on the issue during the next round of the dialogue process,'' said the joint statement released after the four-hour long talks.
Even as the two delegations began their discussions, Army authorities announced the destruction, by artillery fire, of a Pakistani bunker and a cookhouse in the southern sector of the Saltoro range in the Siachen region.
These positions were destroyed inretaliatory fire, to an incessant Pakistani artillery barrage, said the Army authorities. While Defence Secretary Ajit Kumar led the Indian delegation, Lt Gen (retd) Iftikhar Ali Khan led the Pakistani delegation in his capacity as the Defence Secretary.
Both delegations comprised officers from the respective military operations directorates and officials from the defence and foreign ministries.Following its many years of silence on the agreement, Pakistan today remembered Shimla, 1972, while accusing India of unilaterally changing the passage of the Line of Control (LoC) by its occupation of the Saltoro range in 1984.
While the Shimla Agreement has never found much favour with Islamabad, certain portions of the text were selectively referred to by the Pakistani officials in their interaction with the media after the talks. What is of significance, however, is that this is the first public admission by Pakistani officials that India is in the possession of Saltoro range, which also means that the Siachenglacier is firmly under Indian control.
After the respective opening statements, India proposed a comprehensive ceasefire on the Saltoro Range. Should the ceasefire be accepted, India suggested, the modalities of its implementation will be discussed. And then taking off from the Foreign Secretary's suggestion during the last round of talks in Islamabad, India also proposed the setting up of a hotline between the division commanders.
This was part of a proposal to create a bilateral monitoring mechanism for the ceasefire, and would include flag meetings, as also periodical meetings between formation commanders. Terming its proposals as ``practical and workable'', and in order to enforce the ceasefire in the simplest manner possible, India also suggested the authentic delineation of the actual ground position line on the Saltoro Range beyond the termination point of the LoC at grid reference NJ 9842.
But Pakistan would not accept the ceasefire proposal. Security experts interpret it as Pakistan's``inability to then internationalise the Kashmir issue. If there is a ceasefire over Saltoro, people will then say why not over the rest of the LC. Which would then mean that there is no flashpoint here as many claim there is. And that would repudiate any need for third-party intervention.''
Pakistan's presentation was initiated with the oft repeated declaration that Jammu and Kashmir was the core issue bedeviling the relations between the two neighbours. And on the issue of rejecting the ceasefire Pakistani officials said they they had rejected the proposal because ``that would freeze the situation. What do you gain by freezing a position of conflict? And why should we confine ourselves to a ceasefire, our main purpose is to resolve the dispute.''
The Pakistani side today described the talks as a ``regressive, not a forward move they do not represent a step forward.'' Official Pakistani sources said India was also resiling from an agreement both sides had reached in June 1989 to redeploy their forces.Further, the then Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi, during a visit to Islamabad a month later in July 1989 had endorsed that agreement, said the Pakistani officials.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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