By Ranjana Narayan, IANS,
On Board Air India One : Coming out strongly against the continued ceasefire violations by Pakistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday said he was “disappointed” and hoped that Islamabad would “realise this is not good” for the two neighbours.
Answering a question on the spike in ceasefire violations on the Line of Control and the international border in Kashmir, the prime minister said: “I am disappointed.”
He said that after his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York on Sep 29, “there was agreement on both sides that peace and tranquillity must be maintained on the Line of Control and the International Border. And this has not happened… it has come to me as a big disappointment”.
He said both leaders were in agreement that the ceasefire, which has been effective since November 2003, “if it has held ground for 10 years it could be made to hold ground later on also. The fact that this is not happening is something which is really a matter of disappointment”.
“I sincerely hope that at this late hour Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will recognize that this is a development which is not good for either of the two countries.”
The prime minister had stuck to holding the Sep 29 New York meeting with Nawaz Sharif despite calls from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party to call it off due to ceasefire violations by Pakistan that had resulted in the beheading of a soldier in January and the killing of five Indian soldiers on Aug 6 in Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir.
Both sides had decided at the meeting that their Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) would meet to find out ways to make the ceasefire stick.
But there have been frequent ceasefire violations since the meeting.
A top source had said during the Moscow visit that they would assess to see how serious the Sharif government is about maintaining the ceasefire.
“Let’s give them (DGMOs) a chance,” the source said.
“We’ll assess the situation as it develops and see whether there is seriousness or not on the Pakistani side to restore the ceasefire and respect it. It is too early to say, Let the DGMOs talk to each other and see if they can do it … It is too early to draw conclusions,” the source had said.
The source had also said that the increased ceasefire violations could be linked to “infiltration attempts”.
“Many of the ceasefire violations are linked to infiltration attempts. This is the time of the year when a lot of infiltration happens … before the snows, this happens.”
“Let’s analyse how the pattern differs this time. There is certainly an increase over last year. we’ll see the pattern and draw conclusions,” the source said.