Modi appreciates Sushma's reply to Sharif's proposal
Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj undermined Sharif's four-point proposal at UNGA saying, "We do not need a four-point proposal. We need just one: give up terrorism and let us sit down and talk", drawing praise from PM Modi. She stated that Pakistan couldn't catch the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai-attacks. She also stated that there had been new cross-border attacks by Pakistani terrorists.
Kargil war was fought between India and Pakistan and it went on from May till July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and along the LOC.
A two-day summit was held on 14th July between President Musharraf and PM Vajpayee, with the aim of restoring peace after the Kargil war. Along with the issue of Kashmir, nuclear threat reduction, commercial ties, cross-border terrorism and release of prisoners of war were discussed. However, no formal agreement could be reached as both India and Pakistan remained inflexible on the Kashmir issue.
India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire agreement on 25 November 2003, officially ending 14 years of cross-border skirmishes which had claimed the lives of more than 65,000 people. However, the efficacy of the agreement is yet to be seen as a lot of attacks from Pakistan into Indian-held territory are carried out by militants who are unaffected by this official agreement.
A series of border skirmishes took place in 2014 and 2015 between India and Pakistan along the LOC in Kashmir and Punjab resulting in the death of several soldiers and civilians, escalating the tension between the two countries.
Proposed by Nawaz Sharif at the UNGA, the four-point peace initiative aims at establishing peace between India and Pakistan. He requested India and Pakistan to respect ceasefire on LOC in Kashmir. His second proposal called for abstinence from using or threatening to use force, while his third proposal called for demilitarisation of Kashmir. He also asked for an unconditional mutual abandonment of Siachen Glacier.
The Siachen glacier, situated at an altitude of 5,753 metres, in Karakoram is the highest battlefield on earth, and has seen Indo-Pakistan skirmishes since 1984. In the last three decades, 846 soldiers have lost their lives at Siachen.
Nawaz Sharif's request for demilitarising Kashmir was rejected by India on 1 October 2015 at the 70th UNGA session. Pakistani President Nawaz Sharif had remarked that Kashmiris were "oppressed by foreign occupation", to which India hit out saying, "It is, except that the occupier in question is Pakistan." Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup argued that Pakistan promoted terrorism and should be "deterrorised".
