INDIA: The US hopes that war between the two neighbours can now be averted, writes Rahul Bedi from New Delhi
Indian warships began moving away from the Pakistani coastline in the Arabian Sea yesterday as the US noted that tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours had "plateaued" and war between them could be averted.
But at least seven people died in artillery and mortar duels between the Indian and Pakistani armies along the northern disputed Jammu and Kashmir border, ahead of the arrival of the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, in New Delhi. His visit is aimed at defusing the high level of tension between the two sides.
Cross-border firing has become a daily occurrence since militants struck at a garrison in Jammu last month, killing 32 people, mostly families of Indian soldiers. India accused Pakistan of launching the attack and placed its military in a high state of alert.
"Tensions between India and Pakistan appear to be on a level as opposed to an escalating situation," Mr Rumsfeld said in Qatar, before leaving for Delhi. Mr Rumsfeld who will go on to Pakistan from Delhi, said he was carrying some "concrete proposals" to de-escalate the situation, but declined to elaborate.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, however, said the redeployment of Indian warships and Delhi's decision to reopen its airspace to Pakistani civilian aircraft, was only a "very small beginning".
"We are watching for more substantive actions from their side to initiate dialogue on the Kashmiri dispute. Whatever they [India\] are doing at the moment is easing their own problems," Gen Musharraf said in Abu Dhabi.
"These are significant steps and are an expression of our desire to reduce tensions and to pursue the path of peace for which there is no alternative," India's spokeswoman, Ms Nirupama Rao, said.
Orders, meanwhile, were issued yesterday to an unspecified number of Indian warships, including the country's lone aircraft carrier, that have been operating within "striking distance" of Pakistan, to return home to Bombay. The naval de-escalation is part of Delhi's response to Islamabad's assurance of ending cross-border infiltration in Kashmir.
"The whole process [of the ships returning\] will take at least two days," the naval spokesman Commander Rahul Gupta, said, but declined to detail the exact number of ships being pulled back.
Although India and Pakistan have gradually been stepping back from their war footing, over a million of their soldiers are still locked in a standoff along the 2,000-mile long frontier. Both sides acknowledge that the threat of war remains. Official sources, meanwhile, said India is in the process of reinstating its high commissioner to Islamabad as another tension reducing step.
India withdrew its envoy, halved its high commission staff and stopped air, road and rail links with Pakistan last December following a suicide attack by five gunmen on its parliament. India blamed Islamabad for the attack, imposed diplomatic and travel sanctions on Islamabad and mobilised its military for war.
Tension spiralled after the attack on the Jammu garrison four weeks ago and led to the US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Richard Armitage, visiting the region last week and assuring Delhi that Pakistan had promised to "visibly and permanently" stem the flow of terrorists into Indian-administered Kashmir.
India has accused Pakistan of fuelling Kashmir's 13-year-old civil war that has claimed over 35,000 lives. Pakistan has consistently denied Indian allegations, but Gen Musharraf's pledge to the US has tacitly confirmed his country's involvement in the insurgency.