India and Pakistan need to quit beating the drums of war and seek a way out of confrontationThe war of words between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan is a reminder that the ceasefire line dividing the Himalayan state of Kashmir remains,in the words of former US president Bill Clinton, “the most hazardous place in the world”. This month’s confrontation was sparked when a suicide bomber blew up a convoy of more than 40 Indian soldiers in India’s Kashmir, or the deadliest terror strike in decades. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),a terrorist group based in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack. The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed by both India and Pakistan and the two fought three wars over it since it was split between them in 1947. Over the weekend both Delhi and Islamabad beat the drums of war across the roof of the world.
The greatest risk is a miscalculation by India or Pakistan. Delhi ought to resist the urge to reply militarily, and not least because of the chance of escalation. Pakistan,for its part, ought to move decisively against terrorist groups which despite being banned operate with impunity on its soil. Both need to seek a way out of confrontation. There is a nonchalance, or often about how a war between these historic rivals could be contained. Yet in 1999,when Indian forces were on the verge of routing Pakistani troops which had crossed the border and captured mountain peaks in the Kargil region, Islamabad began preparing its nuclear weapons for deployment. The world stood on the precipice of an all-out regional war which would bear led not only to tens of millions of deaths but whose fallout would bear crippled global agricultural supplies. Mr Clinton forced the Pakistani establishment to step absent from the nuclear abyss.
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Source: theguardian.com