Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan started a fresh round of talks yesterday over the Siachen glacier in Kashmir, where thousands of troops are holed up in freezing temperatures in a costly standoff.
The two-day talks in New Delhi over the world's highest battlefield follow local media reports in the past few months that the two sides were inching towards a blueprint for a troop pullout, though officials are tightlipped.
Both sides fielded large teams of bureaucrats and military officers, headed by their respective defense secretaries.
The Siachen dialogue -- part of a wide-ranging peace process -- comes a day ahead of a peace conference involving Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and some Kashmiri separatist groups in Srinagar, the main city in India's Jammu and Kashmir state.
Thousands of soldiers have died in Siachen, high in the Himalayas, with more fatalities due to freezing temperatures, high altitude sickness and avalanches than to enemy fire.
Though diplomatic, commercial, sporting and transport links between India and Pakistan have improved since their peace process started in January 2004, they have made little headway over Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars.
A key sticking point over Siachen is seen to be India's demand that troop positions be marked on the ground and on a map as evidence in case the area is occupied by Pakistan after a pullout deal is reached.
The region has witnessed no fighting since late 2003, when a ceasefire came into place on the militarized Kashmir frontier.
But analysts and Indian military officials say New Delhi's security establishment remains distrustful of the Pakistan army.
They point out that in 1999, Pakistan-backed Islamist infiltrators occupied the Kargil heights in northern Indian Kashmir, and India lost hundreds of troops before re-occupying the mountains after bitter fighting and a near war.
"Kargil made it very clear that if you leave any part of your territory undefended, you cannot rule out the possibility of the Pakistanis coming in," former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan G. Parthasarathy told reporters.
But Pakistani analysts say Islamabad is uneasy about marking positions, fearing it will legitimize India's hold in Siachen.
Hopes of forward movement were raised last year after Singh said he wanted to convert Siachen into a "peace mountain" as both sides tried to push forward their cautious peace process.
Meanwhile, Indian troops sealed off vast swathes of Kashmir's summer capital following a spate of violence by Islamic militants in the runup to a visit today by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the army said.
Combat troops backed border guards in Srinagar where residents in several districts found themselves coralled into "sanitized zones."
"There is very tight security in view of the roundtable conference and the prime minister's visit and operations are going on across the [Kashmir] valley," Indian army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Vijay Batra told reporters.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese