Pakistan and India Move Closer to Talks

India and Pakistan are expected to approve today a timetable for peace talks on Kashmir and other issues, marking another significant step toward ending one of the world’s most dangerous conflicts.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday that junior officials had reached agreement on the way forward after two days of meetings. The countries’ foreign secretaries -- the top civil servants under the foreign ministers -- are to meet today to conclude the arrangements and begin a peace process that is expected to play out over several months.

An announcement Tuesday by the Pakistani government said “a broad understanding was reached for the modalities and time frame” for negotiations. It did not offer details of an agenda for the talks.

However, officials from both countries had said going into this week’s meetings that the expected agreement would outline “a composite dialogue” on a range of issues.

The topics include terrorism, drug trafficking, water and power projects, economic and commercial cooperation and the disputed territory of Kashmir, including the Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani troops face each other on the world’s highest battlefield.

The 57-year conflict over Kashmir is at the heart of the negotiations. India and Pakistan announced last month that they would seek progress on other issues while trying to make peace in the divided territory, and that comprehensive approach is one reason some analysts suggest the current effort might have a chance to succeed where so many before have failed.

The “composite dialogue” has been tried before. The countries first agreed in 1997 to begin negotiations on the agenda that is now on the table. Talks quickly bogged down over Kashmir, and on-and-off efforts to revive the process were unsuccessful until now.

Last week, Indian officials ruled out a separate working group on Kashmir and said the two countries’ foreign secretaries would handle negotiations on the crucial issue.

India controls roughly two-thirds of Kashmir, a Himalayan princely state whose status was left in dispute when Britain granted independence in 1947 to India and Pakistan, which rules most of the other third. China holds a small part.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, and a fourth nearly broke out in 2002 when India threatened to strike against Pakistan after a series of terrorist attacks that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed militants.

Pakistan has long insisted that Kashmiris should be allowed to decide their own fate through a referendum supervised by the United Nations. But India argues that the entire territory -- which is largely Muslim, as is Pakistan -- belongs to it because the former ruler, a Hindu maharajah, signed an accession treaty.

Although Pakistan continues to insist that it will not compromise on Kashmir -- a deeply emotional issue that successive governments have used to unite a fractious country -- Islamabad has also signaled that it would be willing to drop the referendum demand if India made significant compromises.

Unlike some previous attempts to resolve the Kashmir conflict that involved dramatic agreements at highly charged summits of national leaders, the current talks reflect a more careful approach. Government officials are expected to spend many months preparing the ground for any deal that politicians would be asked to approve.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has called early elections that are expected to begin in April and be carried out in four stages. His government is not likely to make dramatic moves before voters go to the polls.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said recently that he expected to know within a year whether a final agreement with India was possible. Although there is a strong public desire in both countries for lasting peace, many people remain skeptical that a balanced solution is in the offing.

Musharraf, who survived two assassination attempts in December, would risk a severe backlash if Pakistanis believed he was giving up too much in any deal on Kashmir. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and an assault on India’s Parliament in December 2001 have severely undercut Pakistan’s argument that it is providing only moral and political support to “freedom fighters” in Kashmir. Several of the militant groups fighting in the territory have links to international terrorism.

The Indian government therefore feels it has a strong bargaining position, and it may resist making the kind of compromises Musharraf probably would need to convince the majority of Pakistanis that the long, bloody conflict, which has drained the country’s economy, had been worthwhile.