Rediff On The NeT: Pak seeks UN intervention in Kashmir

Pakistan has urged United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to send an envoy to the region because of the heightened tension with India in disputed Kashmir, officials said on Tuesday.

The call was made in a letter to the UN chief by Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar. The secretary general should consider sending a personal envoy to "urge India to desist from provocative acts which could lead to further escalation and serious consequences," Sattar said in the letter.

The rival armies clashed on Saturday in the Chamb sector along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan said it lost two soldiers and another five were missing after the clash, the worst since last year's fierce battles between the two sides around the Kargil area in Kashmir.

Each side blamed the other for starting the Chamb fighting. India said 17 Pakistani soldiers and two of its own soldiers were killed in the clash. Islamabad on its part lodged a protest with New Delhi through the Indian mission in New Delhi, officials said.

A meeting on Monday of Pakistani corps commanders chaired by military ruler General Pervez Musharraf described "blatant violations" by India as "intolerable," an official statement said.

The meeting warned that >A HREF=25akd.htm>Pakistan reserved the right to "respond appropriately," it added.

The statement said the "act of cross-border terrorism" in Chamb reflected India's "growing frustration" due to its "inability to suppress the indigenous struggle of the Kashmiri people."

A more than decade old Muslim separatist drive has claimed 25,000 lives in Indian Kashmir. India holds the southern two-thirds of Kashmir and Pakistan the northern third. India accuses Pakistan of infiltrating militants and fuelling the insurgency. Islamabad denies the charge, but calls the drive a struggle for self-determination and openly vows political and moral support.

The Kashmir dispute has caused two of the three wars between the newly nuclear armed states since their independence in 1947.

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