Another Chance to Pull Back from the Brink

The Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia (CICA) that opens today in the Kazakh commercial capital of Almaty is expected to largely focus on searching ways to defuse rising tensions between India and Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made no mention of Pakistan by name when he addressed reporters after meeting with Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.

"I am glad that tomorrow’s summit will also produce a joint declaration condemning international terrorism. We have expressed our hopes that those elements who believe in terrorism and religious extremism should not be indulged and their number should not be allowed to grow," he said.

Russia and China to play mediators

Asian leaders from 16 nations will be participating in the two-day security conference. The conference will also witness a spate of diplomatic parleys as Russia’s President Vladamir Putin and China’s Jiang Zemin play mediators to restrain growing hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Russia is a key arms supplier to India, with contracts worth over a billion dollars.

Putin is expected to hold separate meetings with Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and try to persuade them to meet face-to-face – a possibility all but ruled out by India.

Chances of direct Indo-Pak talks slim

General Musharraf has said he wants to engage in a dialogue with India to calm tensions, but India has repeatedly ruled out any talks with Pakistan until Islamabad stops what Delhi views as cross-border terrorism.

In an interview with the BBC the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said, "not a day passes when Pakistani troops do not fire into our territory. In the process of this firing, the terrorists are smuggled into our territory, so unless this is stopped, there is no way one can talk".

The territory in question is the disputed state of Kashmir, where about a million Indian and Pakistani troops are facing off at the Line of Control (LOC), which divides the region into Indian and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Tension blamed on militant attacks

The present build-up of troops began when 38 people were killed in an attack on the Kashmir assembly in Srinagar inOctober last year.

Tensions rose further after a bomb attack on the Indian Parliament building in Delhi in December.

India blames Pakistan-sponsored Kashmiri militants for the attacks. After another series of attacks last month, notably in an Indian army camp in Kashmir, India has hardened its stand against Pakistan and made it clear that it will not consider withdrawing its troops till there are signs that Pakistan ceases supporting Kashmiri militants.

International efforts to cool the heat

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is now under immense pressure from the international community, especially the United States to crack down on militants making incursions into Indian-administered Kashmir.

The US also fears that a war between India and Pakistan would provide another breeding ground for Al Qaeda cells, many of whom are believed to have slipped into Pakistan.

The spectre of an all-out war between the nuclear-armed neighbours has alarmed the world community. Missile tests conducted recently by Pakistan have done nothing to allay those fears.

High-profile diplomatic initiatives by America and its allies including the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the upcoming visit of US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to both India and Pakistan underline the importance that the Western world is attaching to averting a nuclear war.

Several countries and missions including the US, Germany, Britain, Canada and even the United Nations have already begun recalling their diplomatic staff from the two nations.