Straw proposes helicopter patrols for Kashmir border

There were signs last night that the last-ditch diplomacy of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and a succession of entreaties from around the world might be starting to have an effect on Pakistan and India, despite fresh killings in Kashmir and shelling across the Line of Control.

While the Foreign Office in London would not give details of Mr Straw's talks, others dropped hints of a plan that could allow both sides to step back from the brink with honour.

Mr Straw had returned from the region on Wednesday night, saying that the risk of war was high but conflict was "not inevitable". Diplomatic sources declined to go further, but suggested that specific measures had been mooted, including neutral patrols of the control line between the two parts of Kashmir to monitor Indian claims that Pakistan was aiding and abetting Islamic militants in their cross-border attacks.

The Indian Defence Minister, George Fernandes, said that General Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, had promised to halt cross-border terrorism in Kashmir – a pledge apparently conveyed personally to the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, by Mr Straw on Wednesday. Mr Fernandes also dismissed forecasts of imminent nuclear war in the region, saying that Islamabad would not be willing to risk the lives of so many Pakistanis. "Only those people can think about using a nuclear bomb whose thinking is not in order," he said.

A similar version came from Pakistan, where the Information Minister, Nisar Memon, said that General Musharraf was serious about stopping terrorists. He said that the Pakistani leader had assured Mr Straw that "Pakistan is a responsible country and will further beef up security at the borders to prevent infiltration to India's part of Kashmir."

General Musharraf's undertaking appeared to satisfy India in that it implicitly confirmed their longstanding charges that Pakistan can turn the terrorist attacks on and off at will.

President George Bush, announcing the departure of the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to the region, urged General Musharraf yesterday to "live up to his word" on stopping the cross-border attacks.

Supplying another piece of the jigsaw, Pakistan's envoy to the United Nations said in New York that Britain had raised the possibility of supplying a 300-strong helicopter monitoring force to patrol the Kashmir control line. Munir Akran told reporters that if India accepted such a force, so would Pakistan.

The 1,800-mile Line of Control is the ceasefire line under the 1972 Simla agreement. Itdivides the disputed region of Kashmir and forms part of the frontier between India and Pakistan. According to Mr Akran, Mr Straw informed Pakistan officials of a British study that showed a helicopter-borne force of 300 might be sufficient to monitor the control line.

Such a force, Mr Akran said, would provide "an impartial basis to establish whether or not we are fulfilling what we have said".

In Islamabad yesterday, General Musharraf said that the movement of troops from the Afghan border to Kashmir had not begun but was being considered. Any significant withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the Afghan border could upset the United States, which regards them as a key component of its efforts to combat whatever may remain of al-Qa'ida terrorists in the region.

The British Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, said the crisis was affecting the campaign against al-Qa'ida. "President Musharraf wishes to help in the campaign against al-Qa'ida," he said. "He would want to put more troops up into that particular part of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but at the moment it appears his priorities lie elsewhere."