Bush Sending Envoy to Calm Kashmir Strife

President Bush will send a special envoy to India and Pakistan this weekend to encourage both countries to calm the strife in the Kashmir region, the White House said Tuesday.

Bush has urged both sides to restore “calm and security” to the troubled region, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

He said the mission, to be led by Robert M. Gates, deputy national security adviser, is “a reflection of (Bush’s) deep concern” about the deteriorating situation in the region, which has been at the center of two Indo-Pakistani wars.

Gates’ three-day trip starting Saturday is designed to convey Bush’s message firsthand to the leaders of both countries and “gain a firsthand appreciation of the situation,” Fitzwater said.

Accompanying Gates will be John Kelly, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, and Richard Haas, the National Security Council’s top expert on the region.

Gates, deputy to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, will travel to the region from Moscow, where he has been with Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule in 1947. The two neighbors fought wars in 1948 and 1965 over Kashmir; in 1971 they went to war over Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan.

The southern part of the region is now India’s state of Jammu and Kashmir, the only state with a Muslim majority in predominantly Hindu India. The northern part is controlled by Pakistan, and a cease-fire line separates the two.

Tensions flared in Jammu and Kashmir in January when militant secessionists launched a bloody independence battle.

India charges that Pakistan, predominantly Muslim, is financing and training Muslim militants in the Indian section of Kashmir. Pakistan, which denies arming the separatists, wants a U.N.-supervised election to be held giving Kashmiris the choice of joining Pakistan or staying in India.