India has said Pakistan has accepted its deadline of next Friday for withdrawing Islamic guerrillas behind the Line of Control in divided Kashmir.
A foreign office spokesman in Delhi yesterday said the ultimatum was conveyed to Pakistan during a meeting of the two director generals of military operations at an Indian border post in Punjab state at the weekend.
The plan envisages Pakistan pulling back hundreds of Islamic fighters to its side of the disputed frontier, away from the vantage positions they have occupied since May in the mountainous regions of Kargil, Drass, Batalik and the Moshkoh Valley at heights above 16,000 feet.
It also requires both sides to halt air strikes, artillery fire and ground assaults while the Pakistan-based militants withdraw.
The Indian security adviser, Maj Brajesh Mishra, although denying that any ceasefire was in place, said: "The Indian army has no tradition of shooting people in the back."
Pakistan disclaims any connection with the guerrillas, saying they are Kashmiri separatists continuing their decade-long civil war for independence in which over 20,000 people have died.
The withdrawal agreement comes a week after the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, in talks with President Clinton, said he would "facilitate" the departure of the militants from Indian territory and prevent further escalation of the conflict between the two nuclear-capable enemies.
Mr Sharif also promised to take "concrete steps" to restore the Line of Control, drawn in 1972 after the third India-Pakistan war since independence 52 years ago.
India has hailed the militants' withdrawal as a victory and its financial markets, depressed during two months of fighting, climbed yesterday with the possibility of hostilities ending soon.
The caretaker Hindu nationalist-led government is also likely to capitalise on its success in September's general elections.
It seems clear, from this latest border conflict, that last year's nuclear tests by India and Pakistan only worsened the "no war, no peace" situation between the two neighbours. Military officers said nuclear and long-range missile parity led Pakistan to believe it had the edge in Kashmir state's "proxy war".
"Possession of nuclear weapons has emboldened Pakistan to raise the military stakes at a time and place of its choosing," an Indian military officer said. Nuclear weapons offered Pakistan an opportunity to force a military conflict in Kashmir, because it ensured international intervention in the dispute whenever fears of an escalation loomed and the spectre of a nuclear weapon exchange appeared imminent.
"Pakistan has just one rung of escalation - from the Line of Control [which separates the two armies in Kashmir] to the nuclear option," the officer said.
Intelligence officers said Pakistan was now confident of raising the stakes, safe in the knowledge that India would remain committed to preventing any military crisis from escalating into a full-blown conventional conflict, because of the nuclear risks involved.
After India's multiple nuclear tests last year, Federal Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani declared that possession of weapons of mass destruction had brought about a qualitative change in its relations with Pakistan, especially in finding a solution to the Kashmir issue. Other Hindu nationalist leaders challenged Pakistan to battle at a place and time of its choosing. Such machismo vanished however once Pakistan conducted six nuclear tests, one more than India, in keeping with the competitive rivalry between the two countries. The Indian government, for its part, doggedly refused to even consider the possibility of a conventional conflict existing in a nuclear environment. It reasoned that nuclear deterrence and the prospect of mutually assured destruction in the event of a nuclear exchange, would bring peace to a turbulent region.
Reuters adds:
The Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Sharif, said yesterday the two-month military showdown with India had focused world attention on Kashmir and would lead to the "liberation" of the disputed territory. Mr Sharif, defending himself against charges of a sell-out of militants by seeking their withdrawal from northern Kashmir, said in a state broadcast they had pushed the 52-year dispute with India to the centre of the world stage.