Kashmir the key in India-Pakistan relations

Kashmir the key in India-Pakistan relations

By Andrew Hill

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters): A goodwill bus trip to Pakistan by India's prime minister has put relations between the world's newest nuclear states on a safer footing, but ties remain hostage to the 50-year dispute over Kashmir.

Barring a dramatic and unlikely shift by either side, analysts said there was little scope for a breakthrough -- but that goodwill generated by Vajpayee's bus diplomacy would help ease overall tension for the time being.

"It's a first step. You cannot solve anything when you are shouting at each other," said one Western diplomat in Lahore.

Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee of India and Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan pledged in a series of statements aimed at defusing tension over their nuclear tests last May to work harder on divided Kashmir, cause of two of their three wars.

But they went little further. Sharif said he believed bilateral relations could be good "once we achieve a final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue" and Vajpayee said it was "much too early" to say what solution would emerge.

"I do not see any progress made on the politically contentious issues like Kashmir," said Zafar Cheema, head of the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies at Islamabad's Qaid- i-Aamaz university.

A Pakistani official added: "The issue has not been shelved. Kashmir is there. It is in the declaration, that they will work to resolve it. So fears that we would back down on Kashmir were unfounded."

Analysts said there was little scope for either country to change decades-old positions at present.

Pakistan wants India to agree to a UN plebiscite so that the Muslim-majority state can decide its own future, but India, which controls two-thirds of the Himalayan region, says Kashmir is and will remain part of its territory.

Thousands of right-wing Muslims incensed at Vajpayee's visit made the argument for Sharif in demonstrations in which at least one policeman died and hundreds of people were detained. The protesters accuse India of mistreating its Muslim population.

But India's scope for action is limited by longstanding fears that a referendum in Kashmir could lead to pressure for other regional plebiscites and a sort of "Balkanization".

"Vajpayee says they have agreed to discuss Kashmir, but that has been said by the Indians before. There is nothing new there," said Shireen Mazari, expert on India-Pakistan relations.

Analysts say their main hope is that the first visit by an Indian premier to Pakistan in a decade will fill a vacuum with top level political discussion which could generate more goodwill and eventually open up stagnant trade ties.

"They are creating an architecture for consultation," said one senior Indian official. "It is very much like Northern Ireland, you have to change the mindsets."

Officials from both sides dismissed suggestions that the visit was mere atmospherics and said the upgrading of peace talks to summit level -- and a pledge of more talks at foreign-minister level -- would create its own momentum.

A series of modest nuclear confidence-building measures are also likely to allay Western concern about an accidental nuclear conflict and help generate more trust.

"The only concrete development is that they will inform each other of unintentional or accidental use of nuclear weapons. Given the short span of delivery time between the two countries, this is a good development," said Mazari.

Western defense experts have been alarmed that there is no hotline between Islamabad and New Delhi to handle accidental nuclear detonations or missile tests, and the premiers indicated that a communication mechanism would be set up.

"These (confidence measures) are important developments. Similarly the ballistic missile advance notice, I think this will reverse apprehensions," said Cheema.