Building Confidence

One of the pre-requisites for bringing in peace in Jammu and Kashmir would be to talk. One of the pre-requisites for talking is to have peace. This is a chicken and egg problem. So the terrorists found an easy way to break the deadlock.

Muslim militants killed nine Indian troopers in an attack on a paramilitary camp in divided Kashmir, just hours before India and Pakistan, which both claim the region, began a round of peace talks. Wednesday night’s attack on the heavily guarded camp in an upscale residential district of Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir, came just as the soldiers were sitting down to dinner, police said. One militant was killed inside the compound after exchanging sporadic fire with soldiers through the night. The whereabouts of the other rebels was not known. [Reuters]

Also Pakistani Superman Gen. Musharraf came up with an announcement that more Indian soldiers had died in Kagil than Pakistanis.

In a rare reference to Kargil, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has disputed deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s account that more Pakistani soldiers were killed during the conflict than the previous two wars against India, claiming New Delhi suffered more casualties than Islamabad.[Indian Express]

If these steps do not build confidence in the peace talks, then I don’t know what will.