Pakistan PM to oversee drills at secret site near India

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has gone to a secret area bordering India to witness military exercises involving ground and air forces.

Sharif, accompanied by Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, left for the area Wednesday to witness the military maneuvers.

Different types of heavy weapons, tanks, fighter jets, and artillery will be used during the drills.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the maneuvers are aimed at checking the preparedness of the army in reacting to potential hostile action.

They said that the army chief will witness the exercise less than two weeks before he retires after completing his three-year term.

The drills come three days after Indian cross-border fire killed seven Pakistani soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Cross-frontier shelling between the two sides has intensified in recent weeks, leading to deaths of civilians and soldiers stationed along the disputed frontier.

Relations have been fraught between India and Pakistan since July, when Indian-administered Kashmir was rocked by street protests after the killing of a pro-independence figure there.

A raid on an Indian army base in September, which killed 19 soldiers, was also blamed by New Delhi on Pakistan-based militants.

Many in the Muslim majority Indian-controlled Kashmir are against New Delhi’s rule over the region. New Delhi has deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to suppress dissent.

India blames Pakistan for fanning the unrest. Islamabad, however, has denied any role in Kashmir’s dire situation.

Since their partition in 1947, the neighboring countries have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir. In 2003, the two countries agreed on a ceasefire and launched peace talks a year later. The talks were suspended after 160 people lost their lives in the 2008 terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

Sharif’s adviser to visit India

Meanwhile, Sartaj Aziz, an adviser to the Pakistani prime minister, has said that he plans to visit India next month to take part in a regional conference.

“We want to prove that Pakistan is with the multilateral process by attending the Heart of Asia Conference as Afghanistan is our top priority,” he said on Tuesday, referring to the conference that is due to be hosted by India in December.

Aziz, who is Pakistan’s de facto foreign minister, also said that his trip to India can be used “to defuse the tension” between Islamabad and New Delhi.

It was not clear, however, if any bilateral talks were arranged.

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