Kashmir talks still divided
India and Pakistan opened high-level talks today aimed at solving their decades-old dispute over Kashmir with Pakistan denying it arms and trains a separatist insurgency in the region and accusing India of human rights abuses there.
The war of words over Kashmir – the cause of two major armed conflicts between the nuclear-armed rivals – threatened to complicate the wide-ranging talks between Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri and his Indian counterpart, Natwar Singh.
On the eve of the talks, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said his country was committed to peace, but that it would not be held hostage to the Kashmir issue, which Pakistan had placed at centre stage.
“We’re not afraid of discussing Kashmir. But we are not buying the argument that Kashmir is the only issue affecting relations between India and Pakistan,” Singh said.
A separatist insurgency against Indian rule in the region has killed more than 65,000 people, mostly civilians, since 1989. The guerrillas are fighting for Kashmir’s independence or merger with Pakistan, and India has accused Islamabad of arming and training the militants for ”cross-border terrorism.”
Indian External Affairs spokesman Navtej Sarna said the infiltration of Islamic militants from Pakistan – which India’s defence minister claimed was on the rise in recent weeks with the seasonal melting of the Himalayan snows – was “a matter of concern” raised during the meetings.
Masood Khan, Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman, said all agenda items, including the Kashmir dispute and confidence-building measures, were discussed. He denied New Delhi’s long-standing claim that Islamabad funds and trains the separatists in Kashmir.
“We reject this allegation of cross-border terrorism or that there has been any increase,” Khan said. “Kashmiris have been complaining that human rights violations by India have increased since November. It should be ended so that Kashmiris feel part of the dialogue process.”
Before his arrival in India yesterday, Kasuri stressed the need for immediate progress in the dialogue and said the two countries should adopt a timetable for resolving Kashmir.
“We are facing a deadly situation and this is about the future of the whole of South Asia,” Kasuri told reporters before leaving the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs responded with a statement expressing “considerable disappointment” that Islamabad seemed to want to focus only on the Kashmir dispute.
India has stressed throughout the renewed dialogue, which was launched by former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in January, that other issues, such as trade, transportation and telecommunications, were also key.
Kasuri played down his comments before today’s talks at the colonial-era Hyderabad House.
“If we want peace in South Asia … we will have to talk on all issues,” he said.
Kasuri and Singh also discussed a bus route though the Line of Control from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, to Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir.
“We have been hoping that this is a matter that will be sorted out and the bus service will be operational as soon as possible,” said Sarna, the Indian foreign ministry spokesman.
The foreign ministers also discussed more “interaction” of families painfully divided by the British partition of India and Pakistan, by easing visa restrictions and allowing border crossings for trade, family visits and pilgrimages to Hindu, Sikh and Muslim shrines.
