ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan and India on Thursday confirmed their commitment to a ceasefire along the troubled border between the two countries after a year of bloody skirmishes, a move welcomed in both countries to ease tensions between their nuclear-armed neighbors. Reduce.
A joint statement by the armies of the two countries stated that top officials from both sides had agreed to strict adherence to the truce along the Line of Control, as the disputed stretch of the border is called, and to continue communicating through a hotline. to resolve possible misunderstandings.
“This is a victory of diplomacy and, God willing, more avenues will open in the future,” Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan’s de facto national security adviser, said in a brief statement to The New York Times.
An Indian official aware of the developments, who asked for anonymity to comment because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said back-channel meetings between the two parties in neutral locations had intensified over the past month and had led to the renewed commitment.
Mr Yusuf, without going into the exact nature of the talks, confirmed a long series of secret talks between the two governments. But he rejected reports in the Indian news media of at least one personal meeting between him and his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, as part of efforts to ease tensions.
“These things happen behind the scenes – it takes a lot of effort,” he said.
The reaffirmation of a ceasefire comes amid broader de-escalation in the region after a year in which India felt increasingly bogged down by a slowly simmering but deadly conflict on two fronts: with Pakistan along the line of control, and with Pakistan’s ally China along another border, high in the Himalayas, called the Line of Actual Control.
Pakistan is also looking for an opportunity to restore relations with President Biden’s new US administration, following years of pressure from the Trump administration to crack down on terrorist safe havens that remain in the country. Analysts said Pakistan’s work to reduce the risk of major conflict in South Asia, if commitment to the ceasefire continues, would be noted in Washington’s calculations.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have been particularly high since a suicide attack in 2019 killed dozens of Indian troops in the disputed area of Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of cherishing the terrorists who committed the attack and of carrying out air strikes in Pakistan. Pakistan responded with its own air strikes and then shot down an Indian fighter jet, held the pilot briefly and then released it in an attempt to ease tensions.
Since then, smaller, if at times fatal, skirmishes have often broken out along the border, despite a ceasefire in 2003. Last year saw the highest number of violations, with about 5,000 recorded incidents between the countries, which have a long history of war. and mutual antagonism.
“This is a huge development in South Asia. Relations between India and Pakistan were teetering on the brink of major conflict, ”said Asfandyar Mir, a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, not that 2020 was a violent year at the border. “Withdrawing from that point is a big and surprising turnaround.”
The news of a renewed commitment to the ceasefire was especially welcomed by communities living along the border who had suffered the most from the skirmishes and mortar shells from both sides.
Lal Din Khatana, a farmer who lives next to the fence that divides the two lands in the village of Churnada, in northern Kashmir, said he ran out of his home to inform his neighbors and friends as soon as he heard the news.
He said hundreds of thousands of people living along the Line of Control had suffered a senseless loss of life and repeated displacements, losing their basic dignity. His own home has been destroyed three times in the past two decades by shelling from the Pakistani side, he said.
“The dead will not come back, but those who are still alive must lead a life of dignity,” Khatana, 48, said. “This news has given us a new lease of life.”
The growing problems along the border with Pakistan threatened to bog down India in a two-fronted conflict as deadly clashes had also broken out along the Himalayan border with China. Earlier this month, the Indian and Chinese armies agreed to withdraw troops from a disputed valley that the two countries had been violently opposed to.
Pakistan and China are allies in seeing India as a threat to their backyards, with China often coming to the rescue of Pakistan in the face of international pressure to shelter it from terrorist groups.
Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said it was no coincidence that the number of violations on the Indian border with Pakistan reached record highs in a year when Indian tensions on the Chinese front had increased. .
The reaffirmation of the ceasefire along the Pakistani border comes only after China began to ease tensions with India.
“China and Pakistan have little in common, other than an equity stake in controlling India,” said Mr Chellaney. “The prospect of war on two fronts should India come into conflict with either country certainly further that interest.”
Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, and Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar from New Delhi. Iqbal Kirmani contributed reporting from Srinagar, Kashmir.