Pakistan ready to authenticate troop positions on Siachen

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has expressed readiness to meet India's demand to authenticate troops positions on Siachen provided New Delhi agrees not to use it to make a legal claim over the glacier in the future, a media report said here on Thursday.

In the set of proposals made to India in November last year, Pakistan has offered the 'package deal'.

"Pakistan has softened its stance from total opposition to authentication of troops and has offered India a package deal under which it agreed to the Indian demand but asked India for time bound withdrawal of its troops to the pre-conflict positions as quid-pro-quo", Pakistani officials were quoted as saying by Daily Times.

The details of Pakistan's proposals were made public a day before the Indian Defence Secretary Shekar Dutt and his Pakistan counterpart Kamran Rasool meet for two days talks in Rawalpindi on Friday as part of fourth round of Composite Dialogue process.

The Pakistan official said the reason why Pakistan insisted that India should not use the authentication for any legal purpose was that as per law authentication will legalise the Indian occupation of Siachen and Pakistan will not be able to challenge it if India withdraws from talks.

"Pakistan would also like India not to use authentication of troops for any sort of legal claims in future", the Pakistan official said.

The success of the talks would depend on India's flexibility, the official said adding this was the maximum Pakistan could offer to meet India's demand. "As far as we are concerned, we have indirectly accepted the Indian pre-condition but we hope that India will not exploit as a diplomatic victory".

The talks on pull back of troops have been bogged down for several years as India, while willing to withdraw the troops, insisted that Pakistan should authenticate the positions held by both sides on the maps to avoid any conflict
in future.

Pakistan refused as Indian troops held dominant positions. Also the authentication amounted to publicly acknowledgement of loss of Siachen, which Pakistan military has not conceded so far.

Pakistan also apprehends that authentication would enable India to make use of the experience of Line Of Control (LOC) dividing Jammu and Kashmir to gain international credibility.

While asserting that LoC was not a permanent border, Pakistan has acknowledged the line on the maps, bringing it a level of international acceptance.