India Foreign Relations Pakistan

In an attempt to prevent South Asia's escalating arms race from spiraling into war, the United States this week will launch an international effort to defuse the flash points underlying half a century of hostility, senior U.S. officials said Monday. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will meet Thursday in Geneva with her counterparts from the four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Until last month, the five nations were the world's only declared nuclear powers.

On the eve of an international summit in Geneva, President Clinton appealed Wednesday to U.S. allies, along with India and Pakistan, to work together to "build a more peaceful, stable region" in South Asia. But the administration's effort to defuse the nuclear crisis in the region immediately encountered obstacles, abroad and at home.

Officials on Friday accused Indian soldiers of crossing over the disputed Kashmir border and massacring 14 villagers, including four children. India denied the claim. Several soldiers crept into Lanjod, a village 300 yards from the border, and attacked villagers using knives and guns, Pakistani army Brig. Dilshad Hussein Malik said. Four others were seriously injured, hospital officials said. Thirteen bodies, some decapitated, were brought to a school in nearby Dabsi for burial.

Thousands of Pakistani Islamic scholars decreed Thursday that it is a must for all Muslims to join a jihad, or holy war, against Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region, organizers of a scholars convention said. "Jihad in Kashmir is the religious obligation of all Muslims," the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group said in a statement quoting a declaration issued by the convention.

Here in the Himalayas, the nuclear crisis is giving way to springtime, and the blooming flowers and melting snows signal the annual start of the Indo-Pakistani dirty war. "The season for fighting has just begun," Pakistani Brig. Haider Khan said as he watched an Indian bunker a rifle shot away. As India and Pakistan take their first pause after a monthlong atomic standoff, the low-grade fighting that has marked their relationship for 50 years is picking up again.

The nuclear tests in South Asia have confronted the Clinton administration with a dilemma over whether to help India and Pakistan develop safety measures for their dangerous new devices, a move that could open the United States to charges of spreading nuclear know-how. The dilemma is just one measure of how radically the political landscape in South Asia has been transformed after the series of nuclear tests carried out last month by India and Pakistan.

A medium-range missile capable of reaching deep within the borders of this nation's archenemy and neighbor, India, was successfully tested. The test was conducted at the Kahuta nuclear research laboratory about 25 miles northeast of Islamabad, the capital, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The new missile has a range of 900 miles and is believed capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Pakistan on Saturday accused India of killing three people with unprovoked heavy weapons fire along the line separating the two sides in disputed Kashmir. It said the attacks seemed aimed at sabotaging planned peace talks. Defense Ministry officials, confirming reports from residents in the region under attack, also said three people were wounded by the Indian artillery and automatic weapons fire on several villages near the United Nations-monitored line of control.

India and Pakistan exchanged lists of nuclear facilities Wednesday under an agreement pledging not to strike each other's installations. The 1991 nuclear pact was hailed as the first step toward easing the often hostile relations between the two nations, which have gone to war three times in the 43 years since independence from Britain. The agreement covers nuclear power and research facilities as well as uranium enrichment plants and other nuclear-related facilities.

Indian authorities, basking Tuesday in the liberation of one American and three British tourists who had been held hostage--one for more than a month--implicated enemy neighbor Pakistan in the abductions. Muslim militants seized the Westerners in New Delhi after winning their confidence with bogus stories. They then threatened to behead them if fighters jailed for combatting Indian rule in the predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir were not freed.