ISLAMABAD, July 12: The Indian government has been asked by International Crisis Group (ICG) to reconsider its objection to deployment of monitors on its side of the Line of Control.
The ICG in its report “Kashmir: Confrontation and miscalculation” also called for close monitoring and control by New Delhi on the activities of Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The group’s president is former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari is its chairman. It has members from both India and Pakistan.
The ICG suggested to the United States to urge New Delhi to reopen diplomatic and military channels of communication with Islamabad to scale back tensions.
In the recommendations addressed to Pakistan, India, the US and the international community it said Pakistan should follow through rigorously the commitment to end support for cross-border militants and to close any training camps for such individuals in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.
It suggested participation of the US in case India agreed on dropping of its objection to an international involvement in helicopter-borne monitoring of the LoC and otherwise share with India and Pakistan surveillance information on insurgent movements and military activities.
It called upon the international community to continuously apply diplomatic pressure on both sides to initiate and advance a bilateral diplomatic process to wind down the crisis and move toward a permanent solution.
It said that the international community should also sustain a commitment to democratic transition in Pakistan that would marginalize Islamist extremists and enhancing prospects between India and Pakistan.
The report said that the dynamics underpinning the conflict along the LoC had not changed - even though tensions in Kashmir appeared to have cooled.
“The potential for strategic miscalculations and broader fighting remains too real,” it said.
It noted that the two countries had sought to use the war on terrorism to their tactical advantage, increasing the risk of military missteps.
“Assembly elections in Indian-controlled Kashmir scheduled for September or October 2002 will likely trouble relations further. India is eager to demonstrate that increasing numbers are willing to engage in a dialogue with New Delhi about self- rule and governance, stopping short of independence. Pakistan wants to keep the pressure on India by supporting more militant factions that urge independence or annexing Kashmir to Pakistan,” the report stated.
It said that militancy in Kashmir and the subsequent heightened risk of an India-Pakistan war would not disappear until many things were done.
“In longer term, these include the restoration of genuine democracy in Pakistan and steps by New Delhi to grant political autonomy to Kashmiris, improve their economic well-being and end all human rights abuses by its security forces in the territory,” it said.