NEW YORK: Despite a recent easing of tensions, Bush administration officials are worried that war could break out between India and Pakistan by September or October unless the two countries take further steps to defuse their confrontation over Kashmir.
Pentagon officials said they wanted Pakistan to halt any support to militants in Kashmir from its territory and India to end “human rights abuses” by its troops in Kashmir. It said India must stop using allegations of Pakistani interference in Kashmir as an “excuse for avoiding dealing with that too hard problem.”
Immediate prospects for conflict have receded because of the summer heat and monsoons which make ground operations difficult. But Bush administration officials say that if the efforts by the two sides to ease tensions do not bear fruit, war could break out by September or October when the weather becomes more suitable for fighting.
“There does seem to be a modest reduction in tensions on both sides. But everybody regards it as touch and go.” An unidentified senior official was quoted as saying.
Pakistan and India have programmes to develop nuclear weapons, raising the fear of a nuclear war in South Asia and quotes a state department official as saying “clearly one of the reasons we put the time and effort behind the Gates mission was the concern that the conflict could escalate to nuclear weapons.”
The aim of the Gates mission was not to resolve the long bitter dispute over Kashmir but the immediate task of heading off a war, it said.
The times quoted Stephen J. Solarz, who heads the foreign affairs subcommittee on Asia and Pacific Affairs, estimating the odds as 45 for war and 55 for peace.
“The continuing tensions between India and Pakistan as a result of the crisis in Kashmir is the most serious threat of a major military conflict anywhere in the world at the present time,” he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 29, 1990
