ISLAMABAD, April 5: Top Indian defence officials flew on Thursday to Pakistan for fresh talks on demilitarisation of a glacier in Kashmir where freezing temperatures have claimed more lives than actual combat.
India insists that “iron-clad” evidence of Pakistani military positions on the 6,300-metre Siachen area of the disputed region is needed before demilitarisation of the world's highest battlefield can begin.
Indian Defence Secretary Shekhar Dutt on Friday will lead a nine-member team to the talks with his newly-appointed Pakistani counterpart, Kamran Rasool, in Islamabad, Indian defence ministry officials said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier on Thursday called a meeting of his security cabinet to chalk out a framework for the two-day talks which begin on Friday, they said.
“The cabinet brief given to the defence secretary is clear-cut on the issue of India's position on the need for an authentication of (Pakistani) troop positions on the Siachen,” a delegation member said before leaving New Delhi.
Pakistan fears that setting out its positions would be tacit acceptance of India's claims to Siachen and the area as a whole.
India and Pakistan fought a fierce skirmish on Siachen in 1987 and held several rounds of discussions on the glacier since the resumption of peace talks between two nuclear-armed south Asian rivals in January 2004.
“May be things could be easier this time as they now have a civil servant as defence secretary,” the Indian official said of Rasool, the first Pakistani civilian bureaucrat to occupy the strategic post since 1996.
Mr Rasool took charge on Wednesday from retired general Tariq Waseem Ghazi, who had led previous rounds of unsuccessful talks on Siachen with India.
The two sides fought regular artillery duels in the region up to November 2003 when a ceasefire was agreed along the heavily-militarised LoC.—Agencies
