Siachen on Indo-Pak table today and both sides likely to stay frozen

Singh is likely, however, to begin by congratulating both sides for holding on to the indefinite ceasefire with Pakistan in place since November 26, 2003, which includes the 120-km-long AGPL.

New Delhi will reiterate that the ceasefire be made ‘‘permanent,’’ implying that Pakistan must accept the AGPL which ends at the Saltoro heights, where Indian troops have been stationed since 1984.

India’s hardline is likely to be reciprocated by Pakistani Defence Secretary Hamid Nawaz at the two-day talks over August 5-6. News reports from Islamabad have indicated that the Pakistani delegation will ask New Delhi to first adhere to the 1989 and 1992 agreements between the two sides, which had basically put together a blueprint for Indian ‘‘redeployment’’ to base camp, in exchange for a Pakistani guarantee that it would not take the Saltoro heights vacated by India.

The Islamabad reports say these talks can only be termed meaningful if Indian soldiers come back to the positions held at the time the Shimla agreement was signed in 1972.

The Indian side is likely to throw out that negotiating position—just as it did during the seventh round of talks in October 1998 in Delhi—if only because it took the Saltoro heights in 1984. Since, it has argued that the AGPL must connect from N J 9842, the last grid reference mentioned in Shimla agreement, to the Saltoro range.

As both sides go back and forth and the possibility of a breakthrough recedes into the distant horizon, the Siachen talks could end even before they have really begun. Both sides could end up with an anodyne statement simply promising that the discussions will go on.

Analysts point out that India’s tough line with Pakistan was inevitable. For a start, officials say cross-LoC infiltration has gone up, that figures for July (5) are as high as all the previous months in 2004 put together.

According to one view, Siachen could be later used as a lever when a final settlement on Kashmir takes place. A CCS meeting today confirmed the go-slow approach that New Delhi will take on Siachen. The ever-cautious bureaucracy seems to be back in business. Irritation with Pakistan’s keenness to adopt a ‘‘flexible’’ position on Kashmir is also likely feeding into the Siachen talks.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh walked across South Block to the Military Operations room where the CCS was held, where he was briefed on the Indian and Pakistani positions by DGMO Amrik Bahia.

Ironically, the contrast between this Congress government’s position on Siachen and the two previous Congress prime ministers who put together the deal in 1989 and 1992 couldnt be starker. In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto decided it was high time the soldiers were brought back from Saltoro and the glacier left to its own devices.

Even then, officials took note of each other’s interpretations of the phrase in the Shimla agreement, ‘‘thence northwards to the glacier.’’ New Delhi argued that NJ 9842 connected with the Saltoro ridge, held by Indian soldiers, while Pakistan stated that it connected eastwards to the Karakoram Pass. India ridiculed the Pakistani interpretation, pointing out that the Shaksgam valley included here was illegally ceded by Pakistan to China.

Aborted prematurely, the agreement was revived in 1992 with P V Narasimha Rao as PM. Then Pakistan defence secretary Salim Abbas Jilani (the uncle of Jalil Abbas Jilani, currently director-general of the South Asia desk in the Pak foreign office, also in Delhi for the talks) arrived in the capital ready to sign on the dotted line. By the next morning the deal had been called off by Rao.