ISLAMABAD: Amidst soaring tensions, senior military officials from Pakistan and India are expected to meet next month to come up with a clear plan to restore ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC), officials said yesterday.
The decision to lower the ongoing tensions at the LoC was taken during a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last month. The two premiers instructed their respective directors general military operations (DGMOs) to evolve a mechanism to avoid a repeat of ceasefire violations at the LoC.
A senior government official said that under the existing mechanism, the DGMOs talked to each other through a hotline every Tuesday. “But at the New York summit the two prime ministers agreed that they [DGMOs] should have face-to-face talks,” he said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He said the mechanism and venue for the meeting between the top military officials had yet to be worked out.
A foreign ministry official separately said the situation was still uncertain because New Delhi was not receptive to Islamabad’s peace overtures for now.
Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Saturday painted a grim picture about the prospects of resuming stalled peace talks with Pakistan.
He said the two nuclear-armed neighbours still had not reached a stage where they could resume the process.
