India-Pakistan Talks Focus on Disputed Region of Kashmir

Talks between Pakistan and India, the world’s newest nuclear powers, focused Friday on “peace and security” to prevent a decades-long dispute over the Kashmir region from boiling over into a more serious conflict.

The discussions brought the two countries’ foreign secretaries together for the first time since their nations conducted underground nuclear tests in May that drew condemnation and sanctions from the world.

In brief comments after a four-hour meeting, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed said: “We are still in the middle of our discussions . . . we cannot be expected to produce results” on the first day.

The talks will continue until Sunday, when the two foreign secretaries are expected to issue a joint statement.

Both Pakistan and India possess missiles capable of carrying single and multiple nuclear warheads.

“After the nuclearization of South Asia, both countries are facing new challenges not just to avert a nuclear confrontation . . . [but] to prevent an arms race,” Shamshad said Friday.

Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington, said Pakistan cannot agree to a no-first-use pact on nuclear weapons because India has enough conventional firepower to knock out Pakistan’s nuclear facilities.

The May tests brought global condemnation and fears of a possible nuclear war on the volatile subcontinent, where Pakistan and India are locked in a 51-year-old dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Both countries lay claim to the land, which was divided between them when British colonial rule ended in South Asia in 1947.

They have gone to war twice over Kashmir. A guerrilla war raging on India’s side of the disputed Kashmir border brought the two neighbors close to another confrontation in 1990.

The talks focus on Kashmir, but neither side appears to have changed its position.

Pakistan wants Kashmiris on both sides of the disputed border to vote on whether to join Islamic Pakistan or mostly Hindu India. Pakistan also wants international mediation to settle the protracted dispute. India has rejected both suggestions.