Singh aims to put conflict on ice

Manmohan Singh yesterday became the first Indian prime minister to visit troops camped in igloos on the Siachen glacier, the highest and one of the most futile battlefields in the world, in an attempt to sell the peace process with Pakistan to the country's frontline forces.

Mr Singh flew in a military helicopter to meet Indian troops on the 6,300m high glacier, more of whom have died from frostbite and hypothermia than from enemy fire since the coldest of cold wars started in 1984.

As relations thaw between New Delhi and Islamabad, the two-decade-old stand-off in the shadow of K2 is regarded as an anachronism whose economic and human costs neither country can afford but from which neither can back down.

Strategists have called for the Indian army's presence on the glacier to be reconsidered in the context of the current ceasefire with Pakistan in Siachen and the broader improvement in bilateral relations under the two-year-old peace process.

On his arrival Mr Singh told troops: "The time has come that we make efforts that this battlefield is converted into a peace mountain." He added, however, there could be "no redrawing of boundaries" for reasons of security and prestige.

In a taste of the harsh conditions facing troops, the 72-year-old Mr Singh, winding up a three-day visit to Kashmir yesterday, was required to undergo a health check before travelling into the most extreme climatic conditions on the sub-continent.

The demilitarisation of the glacier remains bogged down by timidity in both New Delhi and Islamabad, with neither side wanting to be the first to march its troops back down the mountains on which so many have died.

The principal purpose of India's occupation of the glacier in 1984 was to prevent Pakistan from gaining control of an undelineated area of Jammu & Kashmir beyond NJ 9842, the last defined point on the Line of Control established in 1972. Once the ceasefire line reached that point in the Karakoram Mountains, the cartographers, in light of the terrain, specified that it continued "thence north to the glaciers". It proved a costly omission. Pakistan interpreted the line to proceed north-east to the Karakoram Pass on the Chinese border while India took it to run along the Saltoro range and Siachen glacier north-west to the Chinese border.

The financial cost is prohibitive. India spends an estimated $1m-$2m a day maintaining its presence in Siachen, or some $10bn in total since 1984. Pakistan spends less, since its roads go closer than India's to the main conflict line, known as the "actual ground position".

Military experts say that satellite technology, which would allow both sides to verify that cartographic boundaries were being mutually respected, has long made a military presence on the glacier redundant.



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