Kashmir attack could put India-Pakistan peace talks on ice
鈥� A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Five Indian soldiers were killed along the Kashmir border late last night, heightening tensions with neighboring Pakistan and threatening to upset peace talks.
The attack comes six months after some of the worst violence along the disputed Kashmir border in the 10 years since a cease-fire was first established. In January, Pakistan and India traded accusations of beheadings, warmongering, and late-night raids on the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir. The two nuclear-armed countries have been preparing to restart peace talks in recent months, and Indian Prime Minister and Pakistani Prime Minister are scheduled to meet in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
"The , and they have now certainly suffered a serious blow," Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research think tank in New Delhi, told Reuters.
滨苍诲颈补鈥檚 , demanding an explanation over how the attack could have occurred, Bloomberg reports. The Indian government summoned the Pakistani deputy-envoy to New Dehli in order to notes a separate Reuters report.
滨苍诲颈补鈥檚 Deputy Home Minister R.P.N. Singh told reporters in New Delhi. 鈥淚f Pakistan wants to have better relations with India, I think this is not the way.鈥�
A spokesman from Pakistan鈥檚 army told Bloomberg that its troops were not involved in any 鈥渦nprovoked firing along the frontier.鈥� And this was not the first killing along the LoC in recent days, according to Pakistani officials.
India escalated 鈥渢echnical and inadvertent鈥� border violations in recent days, according to an Aug. 3 statement on the Twitter page of Pakistan military spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa. A Pakistani soldier was killed and another injured by Indian firing July 27 in the Rawalakot sector of Kashmir, he said.
海角大神 reported after the January flare-up in violence that Kashmir has been a 鈥渕ajor flashpoint鈥� for India-Pakistan relations over the past several decades. Two out of three wars fought between India and Pakistan have been over Kashmir. The territory was divided between the two nations after British rule ended in the late 1940s, however, both countries claim the region in its entirety. A cease-fire has been in effect along the 460-mile LoC since 2003.
"This has been the historical trend: that whenever India and Pakistan move toward peace, one small incident reverses all progress made by the dialogue process," Raza Rumi of the Pakistani think tank The Jinnah Institute told the Monitor in January.
The Times of India wrote today that it was that ambushed the Indian soldiers. There have been calls by Indian politicians for retaliation.
It is a serious escalation and such attacks must be prevented,鈥� Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow at the Center for Policy Research, told The New York Times.
鈥淚f we escalate the situation and the ceasefire goes, India and Pakistan will have to go back to a scenario that would be much worse,鈥� Mr. Raghavan said.
Not everyone is convinced the five soldiers鈥� deaths will disrupt the slowly warming relations between Pakistan and India. 鈥淣awaz Sharif is firmly committed to improving ties with India. He is keen on renewing the peace process and expanding the economic ties between the two countries,鈥� Mr. Rumi told The New York Times.
鈥淪harif also sees better ties with India leading to a reduction of militarism in Pakistan," he said. "Incidents like the one on the border or the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul again point toward non-state actors that need to be controlled.鈥�
