Promising Start in Kashmir

The snow and ice that turn Kashmir into a tableau of beauty each year have an even more beneficial effect: They largely stop guerrillas from infiltrating into the Indian part of the territory to kill soldiers and civilians. If ever there’s a window of opportunity for Pakistan and India to discuss the major issue that divides them, it’s during the winter. This year, both countries seem to be seizing on the possibilities.

Last week Pakistan displayed welcome flexibility, suggesting it might consider solutions to the Kashmir problem other than a decades-old U.N. resolution calling for a referendum to let Kashmiris decide whether to be part of India or Pakistan. Both countries control parts of the territory, which has caused two of the three wars the two have fought since 1947. Both New Delhi and Islamabad have nuclear weapons, raising the stakes enormously.

Hard-line Islamists in Pakistan criticized President Pervez Musharraf for not insisting on the U.N. resolution. But India and the United States welcomed the development, as they should. India has rejected the resolution since it was passed in 1948, insisting that Pakistan withdraw all its troops from its part of Kashmir before any plebiscite.

It has been a hallmark of their diplomacy that each country persists in a position that is anathema to the other. However, last month Pakistani troops ceased firing along the informal border established after the 1971 war; India reciprocated. Other welcome signs of a reduction in tensions include planned resumption of air, bus and train links. The election of a new government in Indian-held Kashmir in 2002 also was encouraging, as was a willingness by some Kashmiri supporters of independence or annexation by Pakistan to open talks with the New Delhi government.

A pro-independence insurgency that began more than a decade ago in Kashmir -- the only majority Muslim state in mostly Hindu India -- brought vicious Indian countermeasures, along with Islamic fighters infiltrating from Pakistan with the help of the Pakistani army. More than 60,000 have been killed in the fighting since 1989, most of them Kashmiri civilians.

India should keep talking with the Kashmiris; it cannot decide the state’s fate solely with Pakistan. That was evident last week when eight Muslim rebels and two soldiers were killed in gun battles in Kashmir. A regional conference in Pakistan next month gives Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India’s prime minister, the chance to discuss Kashmir and other issues with Musharraf. Vajpayee says he wants improved relations with Pakistan. Both men should accept assistance from the U.S., the U.N. and Europe. The possession of fearsome weapons by New Delhi and Islamabad gives all nations a stake in promoting peace in South Asia. India and Pakistan should build on a promising start and not let openings for peace slip away.