Apr 27, 2006 4:50 am US/Pacific
India Rejects Pakistan's Weapons Proposal
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) ―
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The disputed region of Kashmir.
CBS
India on Thursday rejected a Pakistani proposal to remove all heavy weapons from disputed Kashmir, a Pakistani official said.
However, the two sides agreed they would not set up new military posts along the heavily militarized frontier in the Himalayan region.
Senior officials of the nuclear rivals held talks in Islamabad on confidence-building measures in their conventional weaponry, part of a peace process to end a half-century of hostility.
Tariq Usman Haider, head of the Pakistan delegation, said Pakistan proposed moving all heavy weapons above 120mm from Jammu and Kashmir. India did not accept, saying it was its sovereign right to decide where to deploy its forces, he said.
The talks are part of a series of negotiations -- dubbed as a composite dialogue -- that Indian and Pakistani leaders began in January 2004 to settle their dispute over Kashmir and other issues.
The two countries separately control parts of Kashmir but each claims the whole region. They have fought two wars over it since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
The peace negotiations have led Pakistan and India to ease travel along their fortified border, restore severed transportation links but they have made little progress on Kashmir.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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