May 24, 2002	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 11,1423

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WASHINGTON, May 23: A leading South Asian specialist has warned here that in the absence of “very concentrated, very high-level” efforts by the Bush administration, there was a high probability of war between India and Pakistan.

Briefing reporters on Tuesday after a visit over the past few days to India and Kashmir, Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, said time was running out, and he was convinced that in event of war, India was not going to respect the Line of Control in Kashmir.

Like the United States and Israel, India would go after the “infrastructure of terrorism which existed on the Pakistan side”, Mr Krepon said.

He said one way to defuse the current crisis would be for Pakistan to dismantle the infrastructures that sustained militancy, such as training camps, training grounds and facilities. These were visible, and their dismantling would also be visible.

Mr Krepon’s briefing coincided with news of the assassination of Abdul Gani Lone, a moderate Kashmiri, and made the proceedings even gloomier. Mr Lone was in the US only a few weeks ago.

Mr Krepon agreed with US assessments that the latest acts of militancy in Kashmir and Pakistan were to an extent directed also against Gen Pervez Musharraf as they were directed against the US war on terrorism and against India, but said he had hardly heard a good word about the general during his stay in India.

There were still people on the ground in Kashmir who were looking for war between India and Pakistan, Mr Krepon said. These elements were not taking their orders from Rawalpindi or from Gen Musharraf, but Pakistan could not successfully make that distinction, Mr Krepon said, as long as there were militants who were backed by the military.

He said if an Indo-Pakistan war broke out — the two countries have not fought a conventional war for over three decades — it would be fought in a conventional way in a nuclear environment.

Perceptions about “red lines” leading to a crossing of the nuclear threshold differed, but everyone in India appeared to be aware of them. Responsible elders in both Pakistan and India were working under great stress in handling the present “deep crisis”, Mr Krepon added.