Steve Quayle News Alerts

June 9, 2002

TALLINN, Estonia -- Western diplomats say they anticipate some peace gestures between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan in coming days as tensions over the disputed state of Kashmir ease.

The optimism for peace on the subcontinent came as shelling raged across the Line of Control in Kashmir on Sunday, after officials said at least ten people were killed Saturday.

Despite the fighting, a top U.S. official who held talks in both countries said while the crisis was not over, tensions seemed to have cooled.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said at the end of his mission to the region that India was considering returning some diplomats to Pakistan and making "military gestures" to cool tensions.

He expected New Delhi to make reciprocal gestures within days to Pakistan's assurances that it will halt cross-border infiltration of the Islamic militants who have waged a violent 12-year insurgency for the independence of Indian Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.

Pakistan, for its part, affirmed that the "ice has broken," with Information Minister Nisar Memon saying that "due to the efforts of our friends, India has started understanding our position."

Armitage was confident that India may make some moves before the arrival of another top U.S. official, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is expected to spell out bluntly to both sides the risks of war.

Downed spy plane

Underscoring the still tense military standoff, Pakistan said on Saturday it shot down an unmanned Indian spy plane near Lahore, the country's second largest city.

The spy plane went down about 10 miles (15 km) from the border with India, or about 25 miles (40 km) south of Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province near the eastern border, late Friday.

Indian officials made no immediate public comment, but analysts and diplomats said the incident was likely to prove nothing more than a temporary distraction.

They noted that other Indian unmanned reconnaissance aircraft have crashed or were shot down in Pakistan without igniting a full-scale war.

Fears of war

Armitage's visit was the latest in a concerted international effort, by countries including Russia, China and the United Kingdom, to defuse tensions in the region and get the two neighbors to restart diplomatic ties.

India and Pakistan have massed about a million troops along their border and the Kashmiri Line of Control, which divides the disputed region between them, since a December raid on India's parliament.

India has accused Pakistan of funding, arming and training Islamic militant groups and has blamed the attack on India's parliament, as well as a series of other raids in Indian-administered Kashmir, on the militants.

Pakistan has denied the Indian charges saying it only gives moral support to groups waging what it calls a "liberation struggle" for the people of Kashmir.

The standoff has sparked global fears of a possible nuclear war developing over the Himalayan flashpoint, which has already sparked two wars between Pakistan and India.

On Sunday, Indian police arrested a pro-Pakistan separatist leader in Indian-controlled Kashmir and accused him of illegally receiving money to support militants in the region.

Police raided the home of Saeed Ali Shah Geelani, head of the religious and political group Jamaat-e-Islami, and took him into custody under an anti-terrorism law passed by Parliament in March.

Japan, meanwhile, said it would charter a commercial plane soon to help to evacuate Japanese nationals from India. The aircraft would be sent to India as early as Monday because commercial flights from India were fully booked.

Both the United States and Britain upped travel advisories late last week, urging their citizens to leave India and Pakistan at the earliest opportunity. Previous warnings had urged nationals to "consider leaving."

-- CNN Producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi in Lahore, and correspondents Tom Mintier in Islamabad, Martin Savidge in Srinagar and Barbara Starr in Brussels contributed to this report
http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/06/09/india.pakistan/index.html