US urges India to ease tensions

U.S. urges India to ease tensions

New Delhi |Reuters | Gulf News 29-07-2002

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell urged India yesterday to take more steps to ease tensions in its military stand-off with nuclear neighbour Pakistan over Kashmir before heading for Islamabad.

"We look to India to take further de-escalatory actions as Pakistan makes good on its pledges to permanently cease support for infiltration," Powell, on a whirlwind peace mission to South Asia, told reporters in the Indian capital.

He made no statement before leaving New Delhi about his top-level talks to settle the stand-off over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir that recently nearly sparked a fourth war between the nuclear-armed neighbours. He said he would hear the view of both sides before drawing any conclusions.

Powell said the world's eyes would be on state elections in Jammu and Kashmir, expected by mid-October, and they would be key in helping to ensure permanent regional stability. "Kashmir is on the international agenda," he said. He called on India to free political prisoners in Kashmir "who can play a positive role in generating turnout" and encouraged India to allow foreign observers for the elections.

India has jailed several prominent Kashmiri politicians in recent months and has refused to allow international observers to monitor the elections. But it has said diplomats and other foreigners are welcome to go to Kashmir during the voting.

"I have encouraged them (the Indians) to make it as easy as possible (for foreigners) to travel to the region because it will give greater credibility to the results," Powell said.

He added it was vital to ensure the elections took place in an "atmosphere of safety and peace" and said he would urge Pakistan to make "every effort to avoid disturbing" the vote.

A hardline Kashmiri militant group, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, threatened on Saturday to kill anyone taking part, saying they would be deemed traitors "and meet an exemplary fate".

Powell told reporters before his talks the "situation between India and Pakistan had "improved considerably" over the past month since the two countries drew back from war after a pledge by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to halt cross-border militant infiltration. But he said the situation was still tense.

"It is important infiltration come to an end so that we can create conditions that will allow dialogue, to allow both sides to gain confidence in one another once again," he said.

India told visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last week it would make no further moves to ease tensions until Pakistan honoured promises to stop Islamic militants slipping into Indian Kashmir to fight New Delhi's rule there.

Last month, India reopened its skies to Pakistani flights and pulled back warships in what it said were "substantial gestures" to ease the stand-off that began last December after a raid on parliament New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

Powell, publicly rebuffed by India's foreign minister in his bid to push for dialogue with Pakistan on Kashmir, met Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday before flying to Pakistan.

The soldier-turned-diplomat flew into India on Saturday after declaring his intention to seek talks - or at least talks about talks - on Kashmir. But foreign minister Yashwant Sinha suggested in public at least that he was not open to persuasion.

"India always held that if the necessary conditions for talks are created, we will have talks, but we do not think the necessary conditions exist at present," he told reporters before their meeting late on Saturday.

Hours before Powell arrived on his third South Asian mission since October, four people were killed and at least five wounded when attackers threw a grenade at a crowded market 15 km west of Srinagar.

India has said it will not end its military deployment along the border with Pakistan until it is sure Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has made good on his pledge to stop militants slipping into Indian Kashmir.

Pakistan says incursions by rebels from its territory into Jammu and Kashmir have stopped - and the U.S. says they are down but hard to measure.

But India says the violence has resumed in recent weeks after a brief lull.