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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 08/04
Kashmir: The View From Islamabad
December 4, 2003
Abstract
More than five decades after independence, Pakistan is no closer to a resolution with India of the dispute over Kashmir. Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two of them over the status of Kashmir. They have been on the brink of war on several other occasions, including in Siachen in 1987 and in Kargil in 1999. From December 2001 to October 2002, the nuclear-armed protagonists came close to war once again when India mobilised along its international border with Pakistan following the terrorist attack on the parliament in New Delhi. Intense diplomatic and political pressure by the U.S., in coordination with other G-8 countries, averted what could have been a catastrophic clash.
The agreed ceasefire at the Line of Control (LOC) produced by Pakistan's unilateral announcement on 23 November 2003 and India's acceptance the following day, and confidence building measures (CBMs) proposed by India in October 2003, have raised hopes of an improved environment for negotiations. Nevertheless, the potential for yet another Kashmir crisis that could result in armed conflict looms large, since mutual distrust and hostility remain high, and both countries' substantive positions are rigid. Meanwhile the Kashmiri people are caught in the crossfire between the militants and Indian security forces.
