Indian, Pakistani PMs meet and agree to take steps to ease Kashmir tensions

This photo released by the embassy of Pakistan shows Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, left, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right, during a meeting Sunday Sept. 29, 2013 in New York. The prime ministers met in a step toward easing tension, agreed on the need to stop the recent spate of attacks in the disputed Kashmir region. (AP/Embassy of Pakistan/NEWSis)

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed Sunday they need to stop the recent spate of attacks in the disputed Kashmir region in order for peace talks to advance, a senior Indian official said.

They also both accepted invitations to visit each other’s countries, but no dates were set. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met for just more than an hour at a New York hotel on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. It was their first meeting since Mr. Sharif was elected in May.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, and relations between the nuclear rivals have been strained since the 2008 Mumbai attacks blamed on Pakistan-based militants that killed 164 people in India’s commercial hub. This year, a renewed spate of violence has threatened a decade-long cease-fire on the Kashmir frontier.

Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon called Sunday’s meeting useful and constructive. He said that Mr. Singh and Mr. Sharif had tasked senior military officers to find a way to shore up a decade-long cease-fire along the disputed frontier in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control.

“They were both agreed that the pre-conditions for forward movement in the relationship which they both desire is an improvement of the situation on the Line of Control, where there have been repeated cease-fire violations,” Mr. Menon told reporters at a briefing.

“Our overall impression of the meeting was that it was useful because it provided an opportunity for high-level contact on issues that are troubling the relationship,” he said. “We will now see how both sides take it forward in the next few months.”

Pakistani officials were briefing reporters later Sunday. On Thursday, twin attacks by suspected separatist rebels on Indian security forces killed 13 people in the Indian-held portion of the Himalayan region — an attack that the top elected official there said was aimed at derailing the meeting of Mr. Sharif and Mr. Singh in New York.

In comments Friday at the General Assembly, Mr. Sharif called the meeting a chance for a “new beginning” in relations. Mr. Singh downplayed expectations. At the meeting, Mr. Singh raised the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistan and reiterated the need for effective action against perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, MR. Menon said, adding that Mr. Sharif said that was Pakistan’s intention.

Leaders of India and Pakistan last met a year ago. Then-Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari met Mr. Singh during a visit to India in April 2012. He was the first Pakistani head of state to visit the country in seven years. The two also met in August 2012 on the sidelines of a summit in Iran.

That progress has been set back by the upsurge in violence in Kashmir, but the need for peace is intensifying. The impending U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, where India and Pakistan have competing interests, adds new uncertainty to a region increasingly threatened by Islamic militancy.

Mr. Sharif, who served before as Pakistan’s prime minister but was unseated in a 1999 coup, is contending with an explosion in militant violence inside Pakistan itself. In the latest attack, a car bomb exploded on a crowded street in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 40 people. Such attacks in the troubled city of Peshawar have claimed more than 140 lives since last Sunday.

Mr. Sharif wants to improve relations with India and boost trade to help Pakistan’s stricken economy. But he has an uphill task in persuading India that Pakistan and its security services are willing and able to stop attacks on India. (AP/NEWSis)