Pakistan urges India to move on Siachen glacier

BRUSSELS, Nov 16 (Reuters) The chief of Pakistan's armed forces today said India had to move to solve the stand-off over the North Kashmir Siachen glacier, a day after Pakistan suggested a possible interim solution.

The Siachen glacier is the world's highest battlefield, where thousands of troops are holed up in freezing temperatures and more soldiers have died due to weather than to fighting.

India has refused to withdraw its troops from the glacier until Pakistan accepts the positions held by the two sides in the icy, barren region.

''It's for the Indians to do something, they are in adverse occupation of that area, we don't have to do anything,'' General Ehsan Ul-Haq, chairman of the joint chief of staff committee, told Reuters during a trip to Brussels, when asked what Pakistan could do to build up the confidence to solve the stand-off.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Riaz Mohammad Khan said after the first peace talks in nearly a year with his Indian counterpart yesterday that Pakistan was willing to accommodate India's position but on the condition that it would not be a final endorsement of India's claim over the glacier.

Analysts said that was an apparent interim solution to the dispute over the Siachen glacier. Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said yesterday there were still differences over Siachen and more talks were needed.

Kashmir saw an increase in guerrilla violence this week, coinciding with the resumption of the peace talks.

Ul-Haq said there was no infiltration by Jihadis in Kashmir.

''The Indians themselves are acknowledging that,'' he said.

India and Pakistan began peace talks in 2004 after coming close to what would have been their fourth year of war, but they had been halted after deadly train bombings in Mumbai.

The talks have made slow progress, particularly over Kashmir, and have been undermined by militant attacks in the Himalayan region and across India, although officials say overall levels of violence in Kashmir have fallen.

Reuters SK VV2304