Pakistan, India mull ways to end Siachin glacier stand-off

ISLAMABAD,Friday (AFP) Pakistan and India exchanged ideas on ending a two-decade-old military standoff on Kashmir's Siachen glacier, as senior defence officials began a two-day meeting here.

The delegations, led by Indian Defence Secretary Aji Vikram Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Tariq Waseem Ghazi, met for three hours in the opening session in a "cordial and friendly atmosphere," an official statement said.

"Ideas were exchanged by both sides for a peaceful resolution of the Siachin dispute," foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told AFP, without elaborating.

The dispute over Siachen has left more soldiers dead from extreme cold than from bullets. Analysts say it lost its strategic value when India and Pakistan became nuclear powers in 1998.

Meanwhile India said Kashmiri separatist politicians due to visit Pakistan next week could not travel beyond Pakistani Kashmir, but Islamabad brushed the objection aside. The Indian foreign ministry comments came a day after the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the main political separatist alliance of disputed Kashmir, accepted an invitation from Islamabad to take a bus across the Kashmir frontier on June 2 to hold talks to help resolve the longstanding territorial row.

"As per the understanding between the two countries, any person travelling on the bus service can travel within the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters.

"Any violation would affect such understanding," he said in reply to a question on whether Kashmiri leaders would be allowed to travel beyond Pakistani Kashmir. The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir refers to the contentious Himalayan region before an India-Pakistan war over the state in 1947-48 divided it into areas controlled by the two countries.

Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said Hurriyat leaders were not ordinary bus passengers from Indian Kashmir.

"Hurriyat leaders have a special status. They would also be coming for consultations to take the peace process forward," Jilani said.