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Armitage: Indian Embassy staff may be back in Pak

Tallinn (Estonia) June 8
India is considering to send back some of its diplomats to Pakistan and making “military gestures” to lessen tensions between the two, a top US official said today.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage offered an upbeat assessment of progress toward ending the crisis that has raised fears of war that could escalate into an exchange of nuclear weapons.

“I think you couldn’t say the crisis is over, but I think you could say the tensions are down considerably Mr Armitage told reporters as he arrived at his hotel in this former Soviet republic after a flight from New Delhi.

“It’s quite clear that there will be some actions on the part of India responding to the messages I brought” from Pakistan, said Mr Armitage, who met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday to persuade the leaders to ease tensions along their frontier in Kashmir.

Mr Armitage stopped here to consult US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was attending a weekend meeting with Baltic and Nordic defence ministers. Mr Rumsfeld is scheduled to visit Pakistan and India in a few days to continue the talks.

Mr Armitage said based on his discussions in New Delhi, he believed that the situation had improved markedly.

“It’s quite clear, at least temporarily, the tensions are down,” he told reporters.

The Indians “are talking about some diplomatic actions, which could include the return of some people to diplomatic postings in Islamabad”.

“They are going to make, as I understand it, perhaps some military gestures as well, prior to Secretary Rumsfeld’s arrival.”

Mr Armitage said he was unsure exactly what steps India would take to ease the military tensions.

“There’s a whole host of things they could do, and I don’t know which they’ll do, but I got the very strong impression that they were inclined to respond to the international community,” he said.

He said he believed India’s plans to take the actions “in the next couple of days.”

India recalled its ambassador and half its diplomatic staff from Islamabad two weeks after the December. 13 attack on Indian Parliament by Kashmiri separatists.

Pakistan reciprocated by reducing by half the size of its New Delhi mission. Its ambassador was not recalled, but the India refused to deal with him and eventually expelled him last month.

Mr Rumsfeld was scheduled to travel on Sunday from Estonia to the Persian Gulf to meet government officials in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, before heading to Pakistan and India. AP

Advani: Indo-Pak confederation possible

New Delhi, June 8
In the backdrop of Indo-Pakistan tensions, Home Minister L.K. Advani today said if East and West Germany could unite, there was no reason why India and Pakistan could not form a confederation of their own free will after resolving all problems through dialogue and not by violence or terrorism.

“A day will come when the people of both countries will realise that Partition has done no good to them,” Mr Advani said after launching a monthly journal, “South Asia Politics” here.

“If East and West Germany could unite despite acrimonious political relations, why not India and Pakistan? There may be difficulties, but it is not impossible,” he said.

However, “the most important thing to move towards a confederation is that all disputes and problems between India and Pakistan be resolved only through dialogue and not by violence or terrorism”, the Home Minister said. PTI