After their first meeting, the leaders of nuclear rivals India and Pakistan said they had opened a new chapter in their countries’ troubled relations and resolved to work toward a peaceful end to the 56-year conflict over Kashmir.
In a signal that economic cooperation might triumph over military tension, the officials also agreed to study a plan for a gas pipeline between the two countries.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met for an hour in a New York hotel on the sidelines of the opening week of the UN General Assembly.
“I sincerely believe that today is an historic day,” Singh said. “We have made a new beginning.”
Musharraf echoed that sentiment as he read from a joint statement, promising to work for peace.
Just two years ago, the two nuclear-armed neighbors were on the brink of war in a dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir. But after brinkmanship had failed and Singh expressed willingness to Musharraf to reopen talks after he became India’s prime minister in May, both came to the table.
“Both of us agreed today that we have a unique opportunity to reverse the adverse tide in the affairs of our two countries,” Singh told the Council on Foreign Relations in a speech after the morning meeting.
The leaders set out a schedule for future sessions. Musharraf and Singh will meet next month in India during a technology summit and then in Senegal in January. In February their foreign ministers will review the progress that has been made, Singh told the council.
Analysts say that the New York meeting is a promising thaw in long-frosty relations but warn that previous breakthroughs typically have ended in breakdowns. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and had numerous border skirmishes since Pakistan was created after the 1947 partition of the former British India.
Although people in both countries are weary of the conflict in Kashmir, both leaders must contend with entrenched groups that do not want concessions, said Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former adviser to the Pakistani government.
In Pakistan, the powerful military derives its authority from the aspiration to win Kashmiri territory. In India, Kashmir is a potent rallying issue for nationalists.
“Their meeting reflects a desire to reduce tensions without eliminating them,” Haqqani said. “The only substantial thing offered today was a pipeline, and pipelines–like babies–are easy to conceive and difficult to deliver.”
The two leaders said in the days before the meeting that they intended Friday’s talks to be largely symbolic and would not expect any particular outcome.
“I don’t think we are going to sit there and discuss options and then come to a solution,” Musharraf said Thursday during a news conference at the United Nations. “More important is to judge each other’s expectations.”
Musharraf also pointed out that he was born in India, and Singh was born in what is now Pakistan. “That’s good ground for understanding,” he joked.
At the beginning of the meeting Friday, Musharraf presented the Indian prime minister watercolor paintings of Singh’s childhood village and school.
Singh responded with an Urdu couplet to make the point that India and Pakistan have to seize the moment to make peace.
