By IANS
New Delhi : Pakistan has protested India’s move to open the Siachen Glacier in Jammu and Kashmir, the world’s coldest and highest battlefield, to adventure tourism but this has cut little ice here.
In Islamabad, the Indian deputy high commissioner was summoned to the foreign ministry and handed a formal protest, ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told reporters.
The Indian move could have a negative impact on the ongoing peace process between the two countries, she added.
Indian and Pakistani troops have fought a bitter two-decade-long conflict for controlling the 76-km-long glacier, where the heights rise to 22,000 feet and the temperatures plummet to minus 50 degrees Celsius in winter.
The guns have been silent since a truce was declared in 2003 and the two countries are attempting to resolve the dispute over the glacier through their composite dialogue process.
Officials in New Delhi shrugged off the Pakistani protest.
“The Pakistani protest seems centred around an expedition that is to kick off later this month. But two other expeditions are already in the area and an India-France team has already completed its trek,” an army officer said.
“If foreign trekkers are involved, this is cleared by the external affairs ministry. If Indian civilians are involved, their participation is cleared by the defence ministry,” the officer added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Pakistan itself permits trekkers on its side of the glacier. In fact, it was Pakistan’s attempts to clandestinely occupy the glacier in the name of promoting mountaineering expeditions was what had prompted us (the Indian Army) to move into the area (in 1984), the officer said.
He said that Indian Army chief Gen. J.J. Singh himself had announced last week that Siachen was being opened for adventure tourism.
“We have decided to allow adventure tourism in Siachen…We would be opening a facility at the base camp to provide information about Siachen to the people,” Singh had stated.
“Gen. Singh would not have made this statement if it had not been cleared at the highest level,” the officer contended.
A 16-member Indian-French joint team was the first to benefit from the Indian Army’s new open-door policy under which proposals to launch expeditions to the glacier are examined on a “case to case” basis, the officer said.
The team, comprising eight climbers each from the two countries, climbed the 7,500-metre Mamostong Kangri peak during the July 30-Sept 1 expedition.
“The Siachen glacier is ideal for adventure tourism and the weather is just right for this at this time of the year,” the officer explained, adding that since the 2003 ceasefire, “the area has become safer and it is possible to conduct such activities.”
However, and this has nothing to do with the Pakistani protest, the schedule for a 20-member team that was to have assembled at Leh later this week prior to an eight-day, 24-km trek to the 16,000-foot high Kumar Post on the glacier has been pushed back due to administrative reasons.
The team comprises cadets from the Indian Military Academy, the Rashtriya Indian Military College and the National Cadet Corps, as also a few civilians nominated by the Indian Mountaineering Association.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army’s 102 Infantry Brigade that is responsible for guarding the glacier, Aug 29 launched an expedition to Mamostong Kangri. The team, comprising three officers, three junior commissioned officers and 27 other ranks, is scheduled to return Sep 29.
On Sep 6, a 10-member team comprising four army personnel and six civilians set off for the 6,700-metre Rimo peak in the Nubra Valley. The expedition is likely to last a month.
At the same time, there is no letup in the Indian position that there can be no pullback of troops till Pakistan agrees to ground realities on the glacier.
Indian troops currently occupy advantageous positions along the glacier and New Delhi says Islamabad must accept the actual ground position line (AGPL) before pulling back its forces that have been on station on the glacier since 1984.
Pakistan says Indian troops should retreat to the positions they held in 1972 as laid down by the Simla Agreement of the previous year.
This, India says, would negate the very reasons it sent its troops into Siachen in 1984 to nullify Pakistani designs on the glacier.
For New Delhi, Siachen is also important as it serves as a strategic wedge between Pakistani and Chinese troops deployed on their borders with India.
Military analysts warn that any Indian pullback – without guarantees of the AGPL being respected – would enable the two armies link up and threaten the Ladakh valley to the south and even the Kargil region.
Over 600 Indian soldiers have died in Siachen during the past 20 years, a majority of them victims of the extreme weather conditions in the area.