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EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JUNE 21: Even as India contemplates the next phase of its diplomatic strategy to keep up the pressure on Pakistan to vacate its armed intrusion, the true significance of the G-8 statement on the Kargil crisis in support of India is slowly unfolding.
For the first time since independence, the US, which in these unipolar days most likely took the lead in formulating the statement, has finally recognised the ``sanctity'' of the Line of Control. By calling for the ``restoration of the Line of Control'' as well as demanding ``full respect (for it) in the future'', the G-8 implicitly suggested that this was the real boundary between India and Pakistan.
By inference, the G-8 statement also now closes the often acrimonious chapter between India and the western world of labelling the Kashmir issue as a ``dispute.'' It is this word which has kept alive tensions between India and Pakistan for decades, and the US has often not hesitated to use it to its own advantage.
But by formally acknowledgingPakistan's attempt to ``change the status quo (of the LoC) as irresponsible'', the US along with its European allies seems to have recognised that after 50 years, map-making on the subcontinent must come to an end.
Interestingly, Japan, which has been particularly cool towards India since its nuclear tests last year, could do little but fall in line with the views put out by the big powers across the Pacific Ocean.
Nevertheless, New Delhi seems determined to keep up the diplomatic pressure on key nations abroad, especially in the light of the G-8 Task Force meeting that will now take place in Ukraine on Wednesday. The Task Force was set up last year in the wake of India and Pakistan's nuclear tests to monitor progress by these nations on joining the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and besides the G-8 countries, includes those who have given up their right to nuclear weapons like Ukraine, South Africa and Brazil.
The government is also keenly awaiting the visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifto Beijing on June 28. Any public statements by China on the Kargil conflict, only a fortnight after the visit of External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh, will indicate where Beijing's preferences truly lie.
Meanwhile, besides the US, key European nations like Germany and France are also coming out in open support of India. French President Jacques Chirac is believed to be writing again to Sharif asking him to end the intrusion across the LoC. The French are also claiming that they took the lead in putting together the pro-Indian statement at the G-8 summit in Cologne.
But it is Germany which is turning out to be the surprise in the pack, considering that Bonn has in recent years focussed on the bilateral economic relationship. At a seminar at the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Policy organised on June 17, a German diplomat in charge of Asia at the German foreign office was voluble in his criticism of the Pakistani hand in the LoC crisis.
Wolfgang Massing told the seminar thatGermany had the information that apart from Afgan militants, the Pakistani Army was involved in the intrusion in Kargil, violating the LoC. During a question-answer session after his presentation, Massing said: ``The Pakistani Army was involved in the intrusion in Kargil, violating the LOC. This was an irresponsible behaviour to change the status quo and one cannot solve the problem by force and armed conflict.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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