Pakistan, India DGMOs to meet today

Published December 23, 2013
The two military officers will meet to work out a mechanism to ease tensions and maintain ceasefire at the Line of Control. – File Photo
The two military officers will meet to work out a mechanism to ease tensions and maintain ceasefire at the Line of Control. – File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The Director General Military Operations (DGMO) of Pakistan Army will meet with his Indian counterpart at Wagah Border near Lahore today to work out a mechanism to ease tensions and maintain ceasefire at the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC).

Military sources Monday said that Major General Amir Riaz will hold a meeting with Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia at 11am. Both DGMOs will be assisted by a team of four military officers each, they added.

Maj Gen Riaz had extended an invitation to his Indian counterpart last week for the meeting on December 24.

Under a mechanism agreed in September between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in New York, the two countries had agreed that their DGMOs would hold regular talks for reducing tensions along the LoC.

The two countries agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC in 2003, but the agreement has been periodically breached, with both sides regularly accusing each other of violations.

Though hostilities have relatively cooled down now, border troops have exchanged fire several times over the past few months.

The picturesque Himalayan territory of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan by the LoC but is claimed in full by both countries.

The two South Asian neighbours have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

A deadly flare-up along the LoC border in January brought low-level peace talks to a halt which had only just resumed after a three-year hiatus sparked by the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.

However, the election of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in May's polls has fuelled expectations of a rapprochement.

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