Pakistan seeks UN’s help over Kashmir ceasefire violations

New Delhi: Pakistan said United Nations observers will visit its disputed border with India after the deadliest incident between the nuclear-armed neighbours in more than a year.

Both sides blamed each other for opening fire around midnight Monday that killed five Indians and four Pakistanis, including civilians. Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s adviser on foreign affairs, said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s received “no cooperation from the Indian side,” while India’s home minister Rajnath Singh demanded Pakistan end the violence in comments to reporters in New Delhi on Monday.

The latest bloodshed in Kashmir, a region the two nations have fought over for more than six decades, may further hinder efforts to mend relations between the two-nuclear armed neighbours. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration cancelled talks between foreign secretaries in August after Pakistan held talks with separatists in the region.

“The greatest concern here is that civilians are being targeted, which we have not seen in maybe 13 or 14 years,” said C. Uday Bhaskar, a distinguished fellow with the Delhi-based Society for Policy Studies. “India’s response has been more robust and more intense than what was received, a real stamp of the Modi government, resulting in greater casualties on the other side.”

Pakistan today summoned the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan to mediate an end to the violence. Until then, Sharif had been exercising restraint in hopes that India would give peace a chance, Aziz said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, all our efforts to secure peace, tranquility on the line of control and the working boundary have elicited no cooperation from the Indian side,” Aziz said. “UNMOGIP must also be enabled to play its due role in monitoring ceasefire.

Indian Army spokesman Manish Mehta said Pakistan had again “resorted to unprovoked firing” around 2:20 pm on Tuesday, although no casualties were reported, he said in a statement.

Both sides spoke over the phone on Tuesday to convey their concern about the most severe cease-fire violation since August 2013, according to an Indian Army official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. India stated further violence would yield an immediate and intense military response, according to the person.

Civilian casualties fell every year from 2001 until 2013, when 61 people were killed along the border, an increase from 17 a year earlier, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which doesn’t keep track of Pakistani casualties. So far, 31 Indian civilians have been killed this year. Since 1988, more than 14,000 Indian civilians and 6,000 security personnel have been killed in violence along the border.

Modi said he’s ready for “serious” dialog with Pakistan over their long-standing political disputes, he told the UN General Assembly on 27 September. India has long sought to resolve differences with Pakistan through direct talks rather third parties such as the UN.

“With Pakistan I want to hold bilateral talks to improve friendship and cooperation in all seriousness and in an atmosphere of peace, without the shadow of terrorism,” Modi said last month in New York. “But it is also the duty of Pakistan to come forward and create an appropriate atmosphere and in all seriousness come forward for a bilateral dialog.”

While India and Pakistan share a 2,000-mile (3,200- kilometer) border and have mutually understandable languages, trade between the nations totalled $2.6 billion last year. That’s less than 0.5% of India’s combined commerce with other nations, according to government data.

Sharif attended Modi’s inauguration in May, which many had hoped would signal peace and economic cooperation between the neighbours. Since then, there have been more than 120 cease-fire violations along the border of Kashmir, according to the Indian Army official. Bloomberg