New Delhi/Washington, Jan 12: After several hours of firing between Indian and Pakistani troops in the Mendhar sector near Poonch on Friday, the guns fell silent through the night, even as US President Barack Obama showered praise on Pakistan saying it would be very hard to imagine stability and peace in the region if Pakistan and Afghanistan did not come to some agreement.
At a White House news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Obama also acknowledged that he had seen “a greater awareness (of this issue) on the part of the Pakistani government”.
The news conference which followed an hour-long meeting between the two leaders also indicated that they still had serious differences on a future US military presence in Afghanistan.
While President Obama made it clear that there would be no US troops in Afghanistan after 2014 if Kabul refused to provide complete legal immunity to those deployed there, Karzai insisted that other issues should be resolved before such immunity was granted.
The two leaders, however, agreed to support a Taliban office in Doha and urged the government of Qatar to facilitate the efforts.
Obama noted that Pakistan and other regional states had a role in the Afghan peace process and that “a strong and secure Afghanistan is in the interest of the entire region”.
“We welcome the recent steps,” said Obama in an indirect reference to Pakistan's decision to release Taliban leaders in its custody for enabling them to attend peace talks with the Afghan government.
President Karzai, while explaining how the Taliban liaison office in Doha would function, noted that rebel representatives based there “will engage in direct talks with the representatives of the Afghan High Council for peace”.
Karzai said that delegates from other countries, including Pakistan, would be able to participate in the process aimed at bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan.
President Obama noted that after 2014 the US would focus on training and assisting Afghan forces and would also want to make sure that Al Qaeda and its associates did not use the region for attacking America or any other country.
“We can achieve that mission without a very active presence in Afghanistan,” he added.
Responding to a question from an Afghan journalist on how the US plans to deal with terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, Obama said that Afghanistan, the US and Pakistan all had an interest in reducing the threat of extremism.
“But it will require more than a military action,” said the US president, stressing the need for better “political and diplomatic” relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The United States, he said, could facilitate between ties between the two countries but “it's very hard to imagine stability and peace in the region if Pakistan and Afghanistan do not come to some agreement”.
On Friday, a State Department spokesperson said India and Pakistan were both working for peace, disagreeing with the suggestion that the two governments are exploiting an already explosive situation in the region.
“I think we're all for peace, and what's important is that the governments are talking,” said the department's spokesperson Victoria Nuland when asked to comment on reports that Indian and Pakistani governments were using recent clashes on the LoC to fan differences.
“We've made representations to both governments urging them to work together to determine the best course of action,” said Ms Nuland.
“We strongly support their continued high-level dialogue that they are engaged in. That is the best way to work through these issues and end the violence and move back to where we had been,” she said.
The State Department official recalled that recent talks between the two neighbouring countries had led to warming of relations, particularly on the economic side, and hoped that it “would lead to a warming on other sides as well.”
Meanwhile, firing in Mendhar sector which continued through Friday afternoon stopped at around 6:30 pm, and there was no firing at night, Indian army sources said.
On the other hand, Pakistan has mounted a diplomatic offensive, with Pakistan's foreign secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani on Friday briefing European envoys on the situation along the Line of Control (LoC).
He also met US Ambassador Richard Olson to discuss the issue. Jilani contended that the envoys of the US and European countries were concerned about the situation along the LoC.
"I'm sure they will play a positive role in de-escalating the current situation," he said.
Scoring a diplomatic point, he asked India "to thoroughly investigate the repeated violations of the ceasefire along the LoC by Indian troops", and renewed the offer to hold an independent inquiry into recent ceasefire violations through the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).
This was countered by the MEA, which reiterated India's position that it was capable of resolving the issue bilaterally and again rejected the role of any third party.
Jilani had summoned the Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal to the foreign office and lodged a "strong protest on the repeated, unacceptable and unprovoked attacks on Pakistani soldiers by the Indian army". In contrast to India's summoning of its envoy on Wednesday, this was the second time the Indian diplomat was summoned, twice within a week to build pressure on India.
Earlier this week India's deputy high commissioner Gopal Bagley was summoned and served a demarche.
"Look at the whole history of our reaction to Pakistan, the joint terror mechanism, the Sharm El Sheikh declaration we have been finding excuses for Pakistan, that things are going well.
What have we got from them be it on the 26/11 attacks? Pakistan is trying to provoke India and they want to internationalise the issue because they are the president of the UN Security Council and the army wants to get to centre stage of the Pakistani politics," said former secretary MEA, Rajiv Sikri.
