Word: area
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fighting there is -- and has been for more than five years. The Karakoram fastness of northern Kashmir is an area no men ever inhabited, and only a few had traversed, before Pakistani and Indian troops moved in to wage a bitter conflict, largely out of sight of their own people and the rest of the world. Pakistan and India each deploy several thousand troops in the region. Neither side releases casualty figures, yet hundreds of men have died from combat, weather, altitude and accidents, and thousands have been injured. Says the general commanding the Indian sector: "This is an actual...
...When Gandhi and Bhutto met face to face in Islamabad last week, however, they failed to come close to devising a practical solution. Progress has been as thin as the atmosphere in the Karakorams, as the negotiators struggle to settle the central issue: how to divide the disputed mountain area between Pakistan and India...
...from the beginning, New Delhi has argued that India is entitled to control all of Kashmir. Islamabad's claim is more complex: besides supporting a 1949 U.N. call for a plebiscite on Kashmir's future, Pakistan has marshaled what it considers proof that it has all along controlled the area from NJ 9842 to the Karakoram Pass on the Chinese border. Islamabad cites circumstantial evidence, like the fact that mountaineering expeditions for years sought Pakistan's permission to enter the region, and its agreement to cede some of the territory to China...
...fight at close range, the results can be fearsome. In a month-long clash ending last May, soldiers battled intensely on a mountain and ridges near the Chumic Glacier. Both sides dispatched men in a furious race to an icy 21,300-ft.-high peak that commanded the area. "The secret in this terrain," says an Indian officer, "is to be the first on top." Seeing that the Indians would in fact get there first, the Pakistanis took a gamble: in howling winds they tied two soldiers to the runners of a helicopter for a seven-minute ride...
India proposes a cease-fire in place, followed by a thinning out of forces in the Saltoro area; the suggestion has been rejected by Pakistan. In the talks last month, New Delhi broached a new formula slightly closer to Pakistan's: pull back all troops and establish a demilitarized zone, then negotiate on establishing a line from NJ 9842 to the Chinese border. So far, there has been no agreement...