NEW DELHI: India is unlikely to budge from its long-standing position that Pakistan should provide ironclad guarantees for "authentication" of the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in the Saltoro Ridge-Siachen region in the defence secretary-level talks next week.
Defence secretary Pradeep Kumar will lead the Indian delegation for the two-day talks to be held in New Delhi on May 30 and 31, which will mark the resumption of the Siachen talks after a gap of three years. PM Manmohan Singh, ever since he visited the glacial heights in June 2005, has himself been keen to convert Siachen into "a mountain of peace".
But the sticking point in the protracted negotiations spread over a dozen rounds of talks has been the authentication of the AGPL beyond the NJ-9842 grid reference point, where the well-delineated Line of Control simply stopped dead in the 1972 Simla Pact, right till the Karakoram Pass.
Indian officials say resolving the military face-off in the world's highest, coldest and costliest battlefield is "doable", especially since a draft agreement on the festering imbroglio was reached even in 1989. Moreover, both sides have long accepted the need to demilitarize the glacial heights, with soldiers deployed at heights ranging from 16,000 to 22,000 feet in extreme weather and terrain.
India, however, wants proper guarantees for the AGPL authentication, both on the maps and the ground, because its troops occupy most of the "dominating" posts on the Saltoro Ridge before there is troop disengagement, withdrawal and the final demilitarization of the glacier.
Pakistan, in turn, has earlier demanded that the pre-1972 troop positions be recognized since it feels India "violated" the Simla Agreement by occupying the heights in 1984. Later, there were indications that Pakistan was gradually moving towards accepting some sort of a mechanism to authenticate relative troop positions before the 26/11 terror strikes derailed any probable solution in the works.
India, of course, has stopped bleeding like it used to in the earlier years after it pre-empted Pakistan's "Operation Ababeel" to occupy the heights in April 1984 by just one day with its own "Operation Meghdoot".
Defence secretary Pradeep Kumar will lead the Indian delegation for the two-day talks to be held in New Delhi on May 30 and 31, which will mark the resumption of the Siachen talks after a gap of three years. PM Manmohan Singh, ever since he visited the glacial heights in June 2005, has himself been keen to convert Siachen into "a mountain of peace".
But the sticking point in the protracted negotiations spread over a dozen rounds of talks has been the authentication of the AGPL beyond the NJ-9842 grid reference point, where the well-delineated Line of Control simply stopped dead in the 1972 Simla Pact, right till the Karakoram Pass.
Indian officials say resolving the military face-off in the world's highest, coldest and costliest battlefield is "doable", especially since a draft agreement on the festering imbroglio was reached even in 1989. Moreover, both sides have long accepted the need to demilitarize the glacial heights, with soldiers deployed at heights ranging from 16,000 to 22,000 feet in extreme weather and terrain.
India, however, wants proper guarantees for the AGPL authentication, both on the maps and the ground, because its troops occupy most of the "dominating" posts on the Saltoro Ridge before there is troop disengagement, withdrawal and the final demilitarization of the glacier.
Pakistan, in turn, has earlier demanded that the pre-1972 troop positions be recognized since it feels India "violated" the Simla Agreement by occupying the heights in 1984. Later, there were indications that Pakistan was gradually moving towards accepting some sort of a mechanism to authenticate relative troop positions before the 26/11 terror strikes derailed any probable solution in the works.
India, of course, has stopped bleeding like it used to in the earlier years after it pre-empted Pakistan's "Operation Ababeel" to occupy the heights in April 1984 by just one day with its own "Operation Meghdoot".
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