Pakistan Reduces Presence on Volatile Kashmir Border

The Pakistani government made a peace overture to its rival India on Wednesday, announcing the withdrawal of some of its troops from the volatile border of Kashmir, the flash point of two wars between the South Asian nuclear powers.

The gesture came in response to India’s offer to extend by a month a cease-fire with Islamic militants waging a bitter insurgency in the Indian-held part of the divided Himalayan territory.

Pakistan urged India to withdraw troops from its side of the Line of Control, the 1973 cease-fire line through Kashmir, which last year was the scene of fierce fighting between India and Islamic militants. Those clashes nearly escalated into another full-fledged war between the two countries.

“The fact is that we have withdrawn troops from the Line of Control, and that is a very positive step, and we would like to see India now reciprocate,” said Rashid Quereshi, a Pakistani army spokesman.

Concerns about India and Pakistan’s bloody rivalry over Kashmir--which both claim in its entirety--heightened after the two countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998. They have fought two wars over the territory, divided between them after British rule in the subcontinent ended in 1947.

Pakistan has 25,000 to 30,000 troops deployed along the frontier, where they and Indian forces often trade fire. The army did not specify the number of troops that would be withdrawn, but it said the pullback already had begun.

The withdrawal “manifests Pakistan’s earnest and genuine desire to de-escalate the situation in order to facilitate the process of meaningful dialogue on the issue,” the army said in a prepared statement.

The pullout is in addition to a withdrawal of some troops ordered by Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, soon after he came to power in an October 1999 coup. “Those soldiers never returned to the Line of Control, and this is more that we are withdrawing,” Quereshi said.

In Washington, President Clinton welcomed the moves by both countries as steps toward reducing tension in the region.

India’s “initiative, along with Pakistan’s announcement today that it will withdraw part of its forces deployed along the Line of Control and its earlier decision to exercise maximum restraint there, raises the hopes of the world community that peace is possible in Kashmir,” Clinton said.