Pakistani government protested at the American description of the ‘Kashmiri
mujaheddin’ as ‘infiltrators from Pakistan’, international opinion continued to
accept that the militants in Kargil had come from Pakistan. ‘Pakistan is the
instigator here,’ said a senior US administration official. ‘Pakistan has to figure
out how to restore the status quo ante.’
105
In Moscow, deputy foreign minister,
Grigory Karasin called on Pakistan’s ambassador, Mansoor Alam, and also
asked Islamabad to withdraw the infiltrators. At the end of June, US General
Anthony Zinni, commander in chief of the US Central Command (CENT-
COM), accompanied by a senior American diplomat, Gibson Lanpher, visited
Islamabad for talks. Instead, however, of agreeing to bring pressure on India
to change the status quo, the Americans reportedly repeated President Clinton’s
request to Nawaz Sharif to put pressure on the infiltrators to withdraw.
As a traditional ally, China had assured Pakistan of its ‘deep and abiding
interest in and support for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence
and security of Pakistan’.
106
This did not mean, however, encouraging ideas of
‘self -determination’ amongst the Kashmiris and during Nawaz Sharif’s visit to
Beijing in late June, the Chinese leaders were noticeably cool towards accepting
Pakistan’s claim that the insurgents in Kargil were ‘freedom fighters’. ‘China is
worried that it could be Kosovo today, Kashmir tomorrow and then Tibet the
next day,’ commented a western analyst.
107
China had also been working towards
improved relations with India. In , the two countries had signed a Peace
and Tranquility agreement as well as another pact to lessen tensions along the
disputed Sino-Indian border. China had also begun to hint that Pakistan should
consider accepting the LOC as the international border.
108
Elsewhere numerous
other diplomatic initiatives took place. Indian foreign secretary, K. Raghunath,
went to France and Britain to lobby support for the Indian position on
Kashmir. Pakistani diplomats tried to gain support for their position at the
conference of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Burkino Faso.
In the initial weeks of the conflict, the fear of escalation, leading to a
nuclear war appeared more real than ever before. Pakistan’s intimation that the
war could lead to the use of nuclear weapons if a solution were not
forthcoming on the Kashmir issue was regarded as tantamount to ‘nuclear
blackmail’. Although India had declared that it would not use nuclear weapons
in a first strike, military analysts continued to ask whether, in view of
Pakistan’s inability to win a conventional war against India’s superior forces, it
would be tempted into making a nuclear weapon attack on India’s military
installations? Although Pakistan’s minister for information, Mushahid Hussain,
described the prospect of nuclear war as ‘outlandish’, his refusal to state
categorically that Pakistan would not use nuclear weapons in a first strike
enhanced the perception that Pakistan was the aggressor.
109
Rumours of a possible attack by India across the international border in the
Punjab also caused apprehension on both sides of the frontier. Although the
Indian government repeatedly announced that it did not want the war to
escalate, India’s Strike Corps, comprising about , mechanised troops,