Poonch

The 460-mile Kashmir border between South Asia's two nuclear-armed neighbors, India and Pakistan, is heating up, again.  

On August 6th in Poonch,  a remote town and district in the Himalayan, Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, six Indian soldiers on patrol were confronted by a larger group of men in Pakistani army uniforms; minutes later, five of the six Indians were dead. As so many times before, there followed days of back-and-forth rifle and mortar firing - in violation of a generally-held 2003 ceasefire agreement. Then, just today, the Pakistani military reported that one of its officers had been killed by allegedly unprovoked firing by Indian troops. These killings are merely the latest incidents in decades of dispute since August 1947, when Muslim Pakistan was partitioned from Hindu India, when India shed its British masters, and when perhaps millions of displaced Indians and Pakistanis died as refugees attempting to seek secure homes.

But the timing of these latest skirmishes is significant. Prime Minister Singh of India, and Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan, are scheduled to meet in New York next month during the meeting of the UN General Assembly. Both leaders have indicated a strong desire for reconciliation - the newly-elected Sharif has even been outspoken about normalizing ties. Skeptics, and even Mr. Singh himself, have suggested that it was terrorists on both sides of the Kashmir border, looking to scuttle the September meeting, who instigated the latest violence. And in Pakistan, even critics of its army don't blame its soldiers for the August 6th killings; home-grown militants are regarded as the more likely culprits, and together with the instability in Afghanistan, are seen as far more pressing concerns than those posed by India.

Both countries need improved mutual economic relations; bi-lateral trade, for example, is far below a normal flow. Closer economic ties between South Asia's giants are no doubt the best way to foster peaceful co-existence. The pending New York meeting is, thus, crucial.