India and Pakistan begin Kashmir talks

India and Pakistan today held their first substantive talks in six years on the disputed Kashmir region – one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints and a key hurdle in their revived peace process.

India’s Foreign Secretary Shashank, who uses one name, and Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar shook hands, smiled and waved to reporters before leading their separate delegations into the closed, four-hour talks in New Delhi.

A second round was scheduled for tomorrow.

The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two full-scale wars and a 1999 border war over the divided Himalayan region and narrowly avoided another conflict in 2002. Both claim the territory in its entirety.

Underscoring the importance of easing tensions, suspected Islamic rebels yesterday attacked a village in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing 12 people.

India has accused Pakistan of collaborating with the rebels, who want independence for Indian Kashmir or its merger with Muslim-dominated Pakistan. Pakistan denies the allegation, which is a key source of rancour.

“We have very important business to do,” Khokhar said after arriving in New Delhi.

“We certainly will approach these talks with great sincerity and seriousness.”

The two countries have not held substantive talks on resolving the Kashmir dispute since 1998.

Last November, the rivals agreed to a ceasefire along the Line of Control, which divides Kashmir.

Both sides have stopped their daily gunfire, but have jointly amassed nearly one million soldiers in the region.

India was expected to use the talks to propose both sides pull some soldiers back.

India is also expected to raise the issue of Islamic insurgents allegedly crossing from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir into Indian territory.

Pakistan has said it does not allow terrorists on its soil but acknowledges giving political and diplomatic support to what it sees as the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiri people to end Indian occupation.

Some of the Islamic groups fighting in India’s portion of Kashmir have headquarters in Pakistan. A dozen groups have been fighting the government in India-controlled Kashmir since 1989 in a conflict that has killed more than 65,000 people, mostly Muslim civilians.

The main Hezb-ul Mujahedeen militant group welcomed today’s talks, but said there would be no pause in rebel attacks.

“It is good that Pakistan and India have started talking directly about Kashmir,” the group’s spokesman, Salim Hashmi, said in Pakistan. He spoke from an unidentified location.

He said, however, “the Mujahedeen are continuing their activities in Indian Kashmir … Armed struggle is going along. There should be no condition for it to stop for the talks.”

In New Delhi, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Khokhar today met three pro-independence Kashmiri leaders from Indian-held Kashmir before the talks with the Indian government started, a Pakistani diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.

Representing the Ittihadi Force, Shabir Shah, Yasin Malik and Sheikh Abdul Aziz demanded the inclusion of Kashmiri representatives in the India-Pakistan dialogue, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

On Saturday, Khokhar also met a pro-Pakistan Kashmiri leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who favours Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan.

India controls 46 per cent of Kashmir while Pakistan holds 35 per cent. China controls the remaining 19 per cent, some of which was captured from India in a 1962 war.

The Kashmir talks are the most recent peace initiatives launched with a summit in January. A week ago, the neighbours agreed to create a new nuclear hotline to reduce the risk of war and affirmed their commitment to a nuclear test ban.

Saturday’s resignation of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali was expected to have little impact on the peace process because President General Pervez Musharraf is the nation’s ultimate power broker and wields control over such matters.