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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (4734)	6/25/1999 1:43:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

WRAPUP-Pakistan squeezed, India strikes in Kashmir (Recasts, updates throughout) By John Chalmers NEW DELHI, June 25 (Reuters) - Indian fighter jets pounded infiltrators in Kashmir mountain hideouts on Friday as the United States stepped up pressure on Pakistan to bring the confrontation with its arch-foe off the boil. India denied that Washington's involvement amounted to third-party mediation in a dispute which has plunged the nuclear neighbours into war twice since their independence in 1947. But New Delhi welcomed mounting support from Western nations and prepared to receive a U.S. State Department official on Sunday and then send its most senior diplomat to London and Paris for talks early next week. The U.S. Central Commander in Chief, General Anthony Zinni, meeting Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad, conveyed a message from President Bill Clinton stressing the need to defuse the tension. Just hours earlier, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin had pointedly blamed Pakistan for supporting the hundreds of infiltrators holed up on strategic Himalayan heights on the Indian side of Kashmir's military control line. ''As you know, we, the United States, and the G8, want to see withdrawal of forces supported by Pakistan from the Indian side of the Line of Control,'' Rubin told reporters in Washington. In apparent displeasure over the U.S. demand, Pakistan quoted Sharif as telling Zinni that ''the current crisis...required a balanced and constructive approach if durable peace was to prevail in the region.'' Pakistan insists it has no control over what it says are militants fighting for freedom in the two-thirds of Kashmir ruled by India. India says they are Pakistani army regulars backed by Islamic mercenaries, a stand which major powers have accepted. The European Union called on both sides to show maximum restraint. In a statement it urged them to hold to their assigned borders and to resume diplomatic talks, which were tried earlier this month but broke down in acrimony. Western diplomats and analysts said Sharif is stuck in a corner as he tries to head off a wider conflict over a battle plan which was drawn up by the Pakistani army without his knowledge. They said it was not clear how Sharif could now extricate his government without losing international and domestic face, especially given that India insists there can be no reconciliation until the infiltrators retreat behind the Line of Control. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee repeated that stand on Friday, telling a political rally in the eastern city of Patna that peace talks would only take place after the ''last intruders are killed or driven out.'' The Press Trust of India said Vajpayee cut short his visit to Patna to return to New Delhi for cabinet security talks, though there was no official confirmation of such a meeting. The Indian Air Force said that new weapon delivery systems had helped it inflict ''significant damage'' in the Drass sector of northern Kashmir, where dozens of infiltrators are occupying strategic vantage points across the towering Tiger Hills. No details were given, but a report in the Hindustan Times said French-made Mirage 2000 aircraft flew in wave formations and used precision ammunition to bomb the targets. It said they used laser-guided bombs, which can hit a target accurately from 20 km (12 miles), making the jets less vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire and shoulder-fired Stinger missiles. Army spokesman Colonel Bikram Singh said the month-long ground and air campaign had dented morale in the guerrilla camps. ''The zeal, the elan, the enthusiasm, with which the Pakistani army started this operation is no longer there. It is sagging, it is lacking,'' he told a news briefing. A defence spokesman said militants killed Lieutenant Colonel N.V. Raghavan of the Indian army during counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir state. Police in the state's lakeside summer capital, Srinagar, said they had detained the chief of the region's main separatist alliance, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, for leading a demonstration to show solidarity with the infiltrators. In another incident in Srinagar, police hurled tear gas shells to disperse a mob shouting slogans in support of the guerrillas. biz.yahoo.com US pressure mounts over Kashmir news.bbc.co.uk