WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (2003): Muslim militants continue to slip into Indian-controlled Kashmir despite Pakistani pledges to reduce the infiltration, making it harder to ease tensions between the adversaries, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Pakistan had reduced the infiltration last summer but the numbers had since gone back up, perhaps because Pakistan was disappointed its efforts had not triggered a positive reaction from India.
The two countries, which have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over Kashmir, last year built up forces on their border and came to the brink of war after suspected Muslim militants attacked the Indian parliament.
Asked if the Pakistani government was turning a blind eye to the movement of militants or actively promoting it, the U.S. official replied: “It doesn’t really make any difference. It’s happening and it’s not being stopped.”
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming and training militants who are waging a secessionist war in the Indian-controlled Kashmir for more than a decade. Pakistan denies the charge and says it provides moral and political support to what it describes as Kashmiri freedom fighters.
Asked about ways to improve relations between India and Pakistan, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said one way might be to reduce such movements across the Line of Control, the military demarcation dividing the Himalayan region.
“Many people are watching activity that is occurring across the Line of Control to see whether the rate of that activity, if it went down, might be an encouraging step,” Powell told reporters after talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri.
“We’re looking for different ways to use our good offices to get a dialogue moving but at the moment I don’t know that I can be more forthcoming than that,” added Powell, who has visited India and Pakistan twice since late 2001 to try to ease tensions.
