Top Commanders Of S. Korea, U.S. Discuss Security Alliance

Yonhap News Agency
September 30, 2013

 

By Kim Eun-jung, Yonhap

SEOUL -- Top commanders of South Korea and the United States discussed the future of their security alliance Monday as the two nations are reviewing the timing of the planned transition of wartime operational command (OPCON) to Seoul in response to a rising North Korean nuclear threat, officials here said.
Gen. Jung Seung-jo, the chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Martin Dempsey, held a meeting to fine-tune the agenda for the upcoming Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) slated for Wednesday, which will be dominated by the timing of the OPCON transition slated for December 2015.
Dempsey accompanied U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to discuss the joint defense posture against North Korea and attend events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bilateral alliance forged at the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The commanders also reviewed the customized deterrence plan against Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, which will be signed during the defense ministerial meeting, defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
The written plan detailing contingency counteractions underscores the U.S. commitment to extend deterrence against the North's nuclear threat, Seoul officials said.
Analysis of recent satellite images suggest it has restarted the plutonium reactor and may have doubled its uranium enrichment capacity at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Pyongyang is believed to be developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the country has repeatedly threatened nuclear attacks on the continental United States and South Korea.
"The customized deterrence plan is meaningful as it contains detailed strategies against North Korea's nuclear threat," a senior defense ministry official said.
Although the two nations have shared the general consensus to review the timing of the OPCON transfer, the defense leaders are not expected to draw a final conclusion in this upcoming meeting and continue discussions in the coming months, according to Seoul officials.
"Working officials of South Korea and the U.S. evaluated North Korea's nuclear program as a present threat, and agreed on the need to review the wartime operational control transition," a senior military official said, asking for anonymity as he is not authorized to talk to media.
Aboard the U.S. military aircraft heading to Seoul on Saturday, Hagel ruled out possibilities of making a final decision at the upcoming meeting, saying, "I don't think we'll be in a position to make any final decision."
Tensions escalated between the two Koreas when Pyongyang fired a long-range rocket in December, which was deemed as a cover to test its ballistic missile technology. The communist country then conducted its third atomic test in February despite universal warnings from the international community to desist. Both actions invited additional U.N. Security Council sanctions against the impoverished nation.
On Tuesday, both Hagel and Dempsey are scheduled to attend a ceremony marking South Korea's Armed Forces Day.
It would be the first time for the U.S. defense secretary and JCS chairman to attend an Armed Forces Day ceremony in South Korea.
South Korea's latest military equipment, including missiles capable of striking North Korea, will be on display during the parade in downtown Seoul.

Chemical Weapons Officials Cite 'Efficient' Coordination With Syrian Regime

Washington Post
September 30, 2013
Pg. 8

 

By Michael Birnbaum

THE HAGUE — Syria’s government has been “businesslike and efficient” ahead of meetings this week to lay the groundwork for the destruction of the country’s chemical weapons, officials charged with overseeing the effort said Sunday.
Inspectors from the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said they would arrive in Damascus midday Tuesday and spend a week in the city before starting visits to chemical weapons facilities declared by the Syrian government. The OPCW officials said the details of the Syrian declaration appeared to line up with external intelligence assessments of what the government possesses, giving them optimism that the regime was being cooperative.
“It’s been good business so far,” said an OPCW official, speaking at a briefing for reporters under the condition of anonymity. “So far, our interactions with the Syrians have been very businesslike and efficient.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that he was committed to living up to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which calls for a ban on chemical weapons possession and production. Under a plan approved last week by the U.N. Security Council, Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles are to be fully destroyed by the middle of next year.
“Of course we have to comply” with the treaty, Assad told Italian Rai News 24 television, according to a transcript of the interview published Sunday by the state-run, English-language Syrian Arab News Agency. “This is our history: to comply with every treaty that we sign.”
But OPCW officials acknowledged that many practical and political challenges lie ahead. The OPCW does not have extensive experience in dealing with governments that do not fully detail their chemical weapons. If another government alleges that it has discovered Syrian chemical weapons that are not in the official rolls, an OPCW official said, the agency would have to refer the matter to its director general and to its 41-nation executive council.
If Syria does not live up to its commitment, it is likely to revive the threat of military action by the United States and its allies, heightening the stakes of any dispute.
One analyst said that if Syria is accused of possessing chemical weapons that it has not declared, it would put a severe strain on the OPCW, which usually operates within carefully set guidelines.
The OPCW’s dispatching inspectors into the middle of a civil war and dealing with a government that may not be telling the truth is “kind of like asking a weekend runner to run a sub-three-minute mile,” said Amy Smithson, a chemical weapons expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “The OPCW is very much accustomed to routine inspections.”
Another OPCW official said inspection teams may not even be able to reach every declared chemical weapons site because of security concerns. The inspectors will be working with unarmed U.N. security guards and under the protection of Syrian government forces, but significant portions of Syrian territory are not under the full control of Assad’s military.
“It may be that we are not in a position to go to some of these locations,” the official said. “We are not a military unit.”
The OPCW team, initially about 20 people, including engineers, chemists and paramedics with experience in treating victims of chemical attacks, will leave The Hague midday Monday and arrive in Damascus by midday Tuesday, the official said, declining to explain the time discrepancy.
He said OPCW officials charged with destroying Syria’s chemical weapons production capabilities by Nov. 1 will use “expedient methods” to fulfill their task.
“It might be a case of smashing something up with a sledgehammer. It might be a case of smashing something up with some explosive. It might be a case of driving a tank over something,” he said, or filling vessels with concrete, ruining valves and running bearings without oil so that they get stuck.
That won’t take long or cost much money, he said, but disposing of the chemicals themselves “is going to cost a lot.”

Dueling Narratives In Iran Over U.S. Relations

New York Times
September 30, 2013
Pg. 10

 

By Michael Schwirtz and David E. Sanger

Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday that there was a “real chance” to reach an agreement with the United States over his country’s nuclear program, as long as Washington was prepared to end sanctions and recognize Tehran’s right to peaceful nuclear enrichment.
Even as the country’s American-educated foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was making his comments on ABC’s “This Week,” his deputy in Iran, seeking to reassure hard-liners there, said Tehran would never fully trust the United States.
The dueling narratives underscored the complexity of any rapprochement between the two countries, despite a series of unexpected public and private exchanges in recent weeks culminating in a historic phone call Friday between President Obama and Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani.
While Mr. Zarif is widely believed to have the backing of the country’s supreme leader to at least give negotiations a try, hard-liners among the Iranian leadership are watching warily and could try to derail an agreement.
With both the United States and Iran staking out their positions ahead of new negotiations scheduled for mid-October in Geneva, Mr. Zarif said the nuclear issue was a crucial impediment to improved relations between Iran and the United States. But he added that the “first steps” toward resolving it had been taken.
“The resolution of that issue will be a first step, a necessary first step toward removing the tensions and doubts and misgivings that the two sides have had about each other for the last 30-some years,” he said.
But even as Mr. Zarif expressed cautious optimism, the points of possible conflict between the two countries were made clear again Sunday.
A crucial demand of Iran, he said, was the removal of the international sanctions that have damaged the country’s economy. In exchange, he said, Iran would be willing to open its nuclear facilities to inspections. He did not address the sequence in which the actions would need to be taken, or the reluctance of both nations to seem to be making the first major move.
On a different talk show, “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on CNN, Susan Rice, the national security adviser, said sanctions would remain until the United States and its allies were convinced Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons. But like Mr. Zarif, she did not discuss how a lifting of sanctions could be conducted or how much of its nuclear infrastructure Iran would have to dismantle.
In his comments on Sunday, Mr. Zarif signaled that Iran would be prepared to allow inspections, including unannounced ones, so long as they did not come in the form of demands from the United States.
“We are willing to engage in negotiations,” he said. “Of course, the United States also needs to do certain things very rapidly.”
His statement that Iran’s “right to enrich is nonnegotiable” also pointed toward a difference with the U.S. that is more than merely semantic. So far the United States has said only that the Iranians have a right to nuclear energy. The Iranians say that implies a right to enrich uranium; the West has previously negotiated deals, which ultimately fell apart, to provide Iran with nuclear fuel in a form that would be more difficult to weaponize.
In Tehran, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, sought to assure conservative factions that Iran remained skeptical of Washington and would not rush headlong into a deal.
“Definitely, a history of high tensions between Tehran and Washington will not go back to normal relations due to a phone call, meeting or negotiation,” Mr. Araghchi was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars news agency.
“We never trust America 100 percent,” he added. “And, in the future, we will remain on the same path.”
The tensions over the recent breakthroughs were evident in Iran over the weekend. On Saturday, dozens of protesters threw eggs and a shoe at Mr. Rouhani upon his return from an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York.
At the protest in Tehran, hard-liners surrounded Mr. Rouhani’s car, shouting, “Our people are awake and hate America!”
Asked to explain such statements on Sunday, Mr. Zarif said the Iranian people hated American policies, not the American people.
“American people are nice, peace-loving, generous people who come to the aid of people in need all over the world, and this is what we respect and have a lot of admiration for,” he said.
But the policies of the American government, he said, have “unfortunately been the source of instability in our region for many years.”
Michael Schwirtz reported from New York, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

U.S. Aims To Ease Doubt On Iran Talks

Wall Street Journal
September 30, 2013
Pg. 12

 

Obama, Netanyahu to Meet in Washington on Monday

By Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is ramping up efforts to sell his diplomatic drive with Iran to skeptical Middle East allies and to Congress, starting with a crucial meeting at the White House on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel and a number of allied Persian Gulf states are voicing concern about the pace of rapprochement, arguing that Iran will use the diplomatic cover to advance its nuclear work.
Israel, the U.S. and Western allies maintain Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge that Iran's new president, Hasan Rouhani, repeatedly has denied.
The diplomatic push also faces trouble on Capitol Hill, where Israel's allies are signaling the likelihood of resistance if Mr. Obama moves to ease sanctions on Tehran as part of negotiations. A new round of talks is scheduled for mid-October in Geneva.
Mr. Netanyahu said over the weekend that he would use his U.S. visit, which includes the White House meeting and a speech Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly, to highlight "the truth in the face of the sweet talk and the onslaught of smiles" about Iran's nuclear program.
Underscoring Israel's skepticism, the country's domestic security service, Shin Bet, said on Sunday that it arrested a Belgian citizen of Iranian origin on charges he was sent by Iran to spy on Israel.
Mr. Rouhani told world leaders last week that Tehran has no desire for atomic bombs, a position his foreign minister repeated on U.S. television talk shows on Sunday.
"We believe nuclear weapons are detrimental to our security," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told ABC News.
Senior U.S. officials said the White House talked over the weekend with Israel and key Arab allies about Mr. Obama's Friday phone conversation with Mr. Rouhani. The 15-minute call was the first between U.S. and Iranian presidents in more than 30 years, focused almost solely on Iran's nuclear program, said U.S. and Iranian officials.
Mr. Obama will argue to Mr. Netanyahu during their Monday meeting that the U.S. will only make decisions based on changes in Iran's actions, not its rhetoric, said U.S. officials involved in preparations for the talks. He also will say that pursuing a diplomatic track with Tehran won't supersede the U.S. strategy of sanctions backed by a threat of force.
"I think what we would say is we're trying to achieve an objective that we believe could serve the interests of the United States, Israel and the world, which is a resolution that involves Iran coming in line with its obligations," said a senior U.S. official. "Israel will be skeptical, and what we'd say is we've expressed skepticism."
U.S. officials acknowledge that the Persian Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, also are concerned about the U.S. rapprochement with Iran. The Arab states are concerned that Iran could use improved ties with Washington to advance its efforts to dominate the Mideast.
Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. have been at loggerheads with Washington over policy toward Syria and Egypt, and this could be exacerbated by the Iran diplomacy.
"The Obama administration didn't help its perception after the Syria debacle by calling Rouhani," said a senior Arab official who took part in the U.N. meetings.
In Washington, a coalition of U.S. lawmakers, including Democrats and Republicans, has pushed the White House to impose ever-tougher sanctions against Iran over the past year.
Senators said on Sunday that they are preparing even more pervasive financial penalties. Administration officials have voiced concern that new congressional action could limit their diplomatic "flexibility."
"If we can make progress on the negotiating track, and the day comes when there are sufficient concrete results on the table to either suspend or ultimately lift sanctions, we want to be able to do so," said a senior U.S. official who met Iran's delegation last week at the U.N.
The White House also is starting to sell its Mideast strategy to Jewish-American groups. Vice President Joe Biden on Monday will address J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that lobbies Congress on Mideast issues.
Mr. Rouhani, meanwhile, will have a somewhat less difficult time selling the potential thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations. He returned to Iran on Saturday to mixed reactions about his telephone conversation with Mr. Obama.
Supporters outnumbered opponents among crowds greeting him at the airport, reflecting the general sentiment of the Iranian public, said witnesses and Iranian media reports. They lined up along the airport road waving signs and chanting, "Thank you Rouhani" and "Moderation is the voice of Iranian people."
A woman who attended the protest said for the most part both gatherings were peaceful and there were no clashes. However, one protester threw his shoe at the president and another banged on the roof of Mr. Rouhani's car as it left the airport.
In the wake of the diplomatic opening, Iran has disputed charges of acting aggressively. U.S. officials said last week that Iranian-backed hackers committed a series of cyberintrusions on an unclassified Navy computer system.
A spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission, saying Iran has been a victim of Western-backed cyberattacks, rejected the latest charge as being from "anonymous hawkish sources" who want to doom efforts to "heal an old wound."
--Farnaz Fassihi in Beirut and Ellen Knickmeyer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this article.

Once-Calm Area Of Iraq Is Shaken By Bombings

New York Times
September 30, 2013
Pg. 9

 

By Tim Arango

BAGHDAD — Several explosions, some of them from suicide bombers, struck the heart of Iraq’s northern Kurdish region on Sunday, setting off chaos and gunfights in the streets of the capital, Erbil.
The attackers hit a building that houses the regional Kurdish government’s security service, and the scenes that unfolded — terrified people fleeing black plumes of smoke, the charred and smoking husks of vehicles in the streets — were extraordinary for a region that has largely been spared the violence that for years has plagued the rest of Iraq.
In the aftermath, Iraqi forces swept across Erbil, and Sulaimaniya, another major Kurdish city, setting up checkpoints and other security measures familiar to residents of other Iraqi cities.
Officials said at least six people — all members of the Kurdish security forces — were killed and dozens more wounded in the attacks, which included at least five explosions. The violence gripped the region with the sort of fear that has long enveloped the rest of the country. A statement from the regional government said six attackers were also killed.
The attacks came just after the results of the region’s parliamentary elections were announced, but much of the speculation surrounding the motivation for the attack centered on Syria, where Kurdish militias, some of them supported and trained by the security forces in Iraqi Kurdistan, have been fighting against jihadist groups linked to Al Qaeda. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings.
“We all know that Kurdistan is part of an unstable region, and security breaches sometimes happen even in developed countries, and I think that what is happening in Syria has something to do with today’s explosions,” said Shwan Taha, a Kurdish member of Iraq’s Parliament in Baghdad.
In a statement, the United Nations office in Baghdad expressed shock at the “daring attack.”
“For many years, the city of Erbil has benefited from peace and security, and I urge the regional and national authorities to work together to ensure that calm and tranquillity will continue to prevail and that those responsible for the attack are brought to justice,” Nikolay Mladenov, the United Nations representative to Iraq, said in the statement.
The self-governing Iraqi Kurdish region has been a haven of relative security and prosperity compared with the rest of the country, and it has attracted substantial foreign investment, including from foreign oil companies eager to develop the region’s vast oil reserves. During the years that American troops were fighting in Iraq, not a single American soldier was killed in combat in Iraqi Kurdistan. But the attacks on Sunday demonstrated that no place in Iraq was truly safe, as the war in Syria increasingly spills over its borders and as Iraq’s own Sunni insurgent groups accelerate their attacks.
Iraq’s Qaeda affiliate has gained strength across the country, but particularly in the northern city of Mosul, not far from the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, leading to speculation that groups there could have been behind the bombings.
The last significant attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan occurred in 2007, when the Interior Ministry building in Erbil was struck.
Iraq’s Kurdish leaders have sought to portray their region as a hub for foreign investment and a bastion of stability, but it has become increasingly affected by the war in Syria, where a minority Kurdish population has taken up arms to secure a measure of autonomy. Thousands of Syrian Kurdish refugees have streamed into northern Iraq, and Iraqi Kurdish leaders, especially the regional president, Massoud Barzani, have offered support to Kurdish militiamen within Syria. Mr. Barzani has even threatened to intervene militarily in Syria with his own security forces, known as the pesh merga.
The attacks on Sunday appeared to have been coordinated and well organized, with the perpetrators wearing military uniforms. After the initial explosion, an ambulance filled with explosives, which apparently had been waved in by members of the security forces, also detonated, according to a security official in Erbil.
The Erbil attacks were the most remarkable ones on Sunday in Iraq because of their location, but they were not the deadliest. In the afternoon, two suicide bombers detonated explosives in a Shiite mosque south of Baghdad during a funeral for three members of a family who had been killed several days ago when their house was blown up by terrorists. In the bombing on Sunday, which was the latest in a string of terrorist strikes against funerals in Iraq, at least 31 people were killed and nearly 50 wounded.
As night fell in Iraq, another explosion occurred, this one in Sadr City, a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad, where a car bomb exploded at a vegetable market, killing at least five people and wounding more than a dozen.
Duraid Adnan and Yasir Ghazi contributed reporting, and employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad, Sulaimaniya and Hilla, Iraq.

China Ban On Items For Nuclear Use To North Korea May Stall Arms Bid

New York Times
September 30, 2013
Pg. 4

 

By Jane Perlez

BEIJING — During the George W. Bush era, North Korea and Iran were joined together as the Axis of Evil, but with President Obama’s phone call to President Hassan Rouhani of Iran last week, that pairing — already out of favor in some quarters in Washington — was no longer so tight. It is virtually impossible, analysts say, to imagine Mr. Obama reaching out anytime soon to the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, who has already tested a nuclear bomb and threatened to stage a nuclear attack against the United States.
North Korea became even more of an outlier last week. China, its longtime patron, produced a list of equipment and chemical substances it banned for export to North Korea, fearing that the North would use the items to speed development of an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear bomb on top.
The publication of the 236-page list of banned items came as a surprise to many who follow North Korea and China, given China’s longstanding reluctance to do anything that might destabilize the North and allow the United States any more power on the Korean Peninsula.
Both Chinese and Western analysts called the export ban an important development — if it is implemented fully — especially since the list appeared to have been approved at the highest levels of the Chinese government. Either the Politburo, or the group’s seven-member Standing Committee, the apex of Chinese power, gave the green light, they said.
The compilation of the items, down to their measurements in both inches and millimeters, was probably months in the making, and almost certainly involved the expertise of China’s nuclear and military bureaucracies, they said. The export ban would give a boost to United Nations sanctions imposed this year that were meant to starve the North’s increasingly sophisticated nuclear programs. The North gets many important materials from China, and American officials had long said sanctions would not work without more Chinese cooperation.
The release of the list came after new signs of the North’s continued nuclear buildup. Recent satellite photography showed steam emerging from a newly reconstructed nuclear reactor, suggesting that the North might be making good on its promise to resume the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Last week, two American arms-control experts said that a wide-ranging analysis suggested that the North had learned to produce crucial components for uranium enrichment without obvious foreign help.
Roger Cavazos, a former United States Army intelligence officer who specialized in China’s military, said an initial reading of the long list of banned items suggested that China was targeting important aspects of North Korean nuclear programs, including the ceramics needed to protect a warhead as it re-entered the earth’s atmosphere atop a missile.
Despite the North’s underground tests of crude nuclear devices, experts say it has not yet tested a vehicle that can withstand the heat of re-entry, an important step in building a deliverable nuclear bomb. Experts also say that North Korea has most likely not yet mastered the difficult task of miniaturizing a nuclear bomb to fit atop a missile.
Since China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, came to power earlier this year, Beijing has been tougher toward North Korea on its nuclear abilities, even as it has continued business investment there in a bid to help stabilize the impoverished country.
Chinese analysts say Beijing is increasingly frustrated at Mr. Kim’s unpredictable behavior since he ascended to the leadership after the death of his father two years ago, including his decision to proceed with a nuclear test this year despite China’s disapproval.
The publication of the banned items for export was described by these experts as a sign of further exasperation, and a desire for China to fall in line with the United Nations sanctions that it voted for earlier this year.
The diplomatic opening between the United States and Iran on Friday would give China another opportunity to “put the squeeze” on North Korea, said Zhu Feng, the deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Beijing University. “Now Beijing can say to North Korea: ‘If you want to breach your isolation, you should do more.’ ”
A senior official in the Obama administration said American analysts would be poring over the list to determine if China was implementing the sanctions it approved or was rattled enough about North Korea’s nuclear progress to go even further.
The timing of the export controls helped China to show a “balanced” public policy toward North Korea, the official said.
Earlier this month, in a “good cop” move, China invited several senior North Korean officials to a public event run by the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. The conference was designed to foster the restarting of talks to get North Korea to give up its weapons, and to give a polite gloss to the testy relations between the two countries.
The “bad cop” move came with the release of the list of banned items, the administration official suggested.
The publication of the list comes with an added benefit for North Korea watchers, who are always struggling to ascertain the highly secretive country’s nuclear abilities.
“The list gives a good insight into what China knows about the missile and bomb development of North Korea,” said Mr. Cavazos, the former Army intelligence officer who now works as an analyst at the Nautilus Institute, which studies international security issues. “From what I can tell, it lays out almost all China knows about North Korea’s missile and nuclear program.”
Among the banned items he mentioned as important were metal alloys needed in the enrichment of uranium; North Korea’s metallurgical skills are thought to be poor. Red fuming nitric acid, the substance that some American experts said fueled a North Korean rocket launched last December, also figured prominently on the list, he said.
Still, no matter how definitive the export controls, they would have little impact unless the Chinese authorities enforced them, said Siegfried S. Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now at Stanford University.
“Now they have to make sure their companies are committed to the export control list,” said Mr. Hecker, who was the first American to be shown North Korea’s uranium enrichment plant. “Putting out the regulations itself is not going to slow down the North Koreans.”
Mr. Cavazos also said enforcement would be critical. “I have no idea if a Chinese customs official on the border with North Korea has any idea what most of the things in the 236 pages look like,” he said.
Nonetheless, Mr. Hecker said China had taken a useful step in potentially slowing North Korean advances. If the contact between the United States and Iran developed into full-fledged negotiations, the North Korean nuclear program could be even further pressed.
“One of the most significant benefits of a U.S.-Iran deal could be termination, or at least a curtailment, of nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Iran,” Mr. Hecker said.

India And Pakistan Talk, But Tensions Are High

New York Times
September 30, 2013
Pg. 8

 

By Declan Walsh

LONDON — The leaders of Pakistan and India held their first official meeting in New York on Sunday, leaving with renewed promises of mutual restraint in Kashmir but little real hope for a fresh start in relations.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan shook hands for the cameras at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan before their long-anticipated meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. But despite the smiles, violence back home formed the backdrop to the encounter.
A series of cross-border artillery exchanges in the disputed territory of Kashmir over the past two months has led to the death of at least eight soldiers on both sides, and plunged diplomatic relations to their lowest ebb in years. In the latest episode, on Thursday, a militant raid on an Indian Army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir resulted in the deaths of at least 10 people, causing an outcry in India.
India’s national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, said that Mr. Singh and Mr. Sharif agreed during their meeting on Sunday to dial back tensions in Kashmir, the disputed territory that has triggered three wars between Pakistan and India since 1947.
The leaders pledged to push senior military officers to find “effective means” of restoring a 2003 cease-fire in Kashmir, Mr. Menon said.
Both Mr. Singh and Mr. Sharif personally favor normalizing relations, but both are hamstrung by domestic considerations — especially hard-line elements in their respective military and political establishments — that drastically limit their room to maneuver.
Mr. Singh’s party faces an electoral challenge early next year against Hindu parties that have called for a tougher stance against Pakistan. Under fire at home for meeting with Mr. Sharif, he established a tough tone in an address to the United Nations on Saturday in which he called Pakistan the “epicenter of terrorism” in South Asia.
For any progress to occur, he said, Pakistan has to first ensure that the “terrorist machine” operating from its soil is shut down. That was a reference to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group that was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, in which 166 people were killed, and whose leadership still enjoys free movement within Pakistan.
Mr. Sharif, 63, was more optimistic, telling the United Nations on Friday that he wanted “a new beginning” with India, and deploring the resources both countries have spent on their nuclear-arms race — a pointed statement given that it was Mr. Sharif who ordered Pakistan’s first nuclear test during his last stint in power in the late 1990s.
Mr. Sharif’s push for a new peace initiative can be seen in part as an attempt to continue the business of that previous term, in which he staked much on reaching out to India in a process that was derailed by a nuclear crisis and a military coup in 1999. Now, as then, he has framed better relations with India as an economic necessity for both countries.
“We stand ready to re-engage with India in a substantive and purposeful dialogue,” he said during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.
For Mr. Singh, 81, whose lack of personal political power has made him a deeply cautious prime minister, meeting with Mr. Sharif was a bold move.
On Sunday at a large rally in New Delhi, Narendra Modi, who is the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, questioned Mr. Singh’s ability to undertake the meeting effectively.
“I wonder if he will meet the Pakistan P.M. confidently today?” Mr. Modi asked. “Will he be able to ask him when Pakistan will stop aiding terrorism? Will he be able to question Nawaz Sharif on the Indian soldiers who were brutally killed?”
Analysts said Sunday’s meeting met its low expectations, and could at best stabilize relations until the political climate in both countries improved.
“This can help border incidents from escalating until India’s election season is over and more serious business can be transacted between the two countries,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States.
Stephen P. Cohen, an American academic who recently published a book on the India-Pakistan conflict, said the leaders appeared as “two men with tired ideas and constraints that they cannot overcome, afraid to take the bold measures that could liberate them.”
But even with the best intentions, Pakistani and Indian leaders have frequently found their efforts at diplomacy undone by the spoiling tactics of hard-liners.
In 1999, Mr. Sharif made impressive strides toward peace with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India’s prime minister. Months later, the Pakistani military carried out a covert operation in the disputed territory of Kashmir that spectacularly upended the peace drive and, for a brief period, edged the two countries toward a nuclear conflict. A coup deposed Mr. Sharif soon afterward.
In November 2008, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, told an Indian conference that Pakistan was ready for a more moderate nuclear weapons policy, and called for closer economic ties between the countries. Days later came the militants’ coordinated attacks in Mumbai.
The long conflict between India and Pakistan has become a major preoccupation of the security establishment in both countries, and has found expression through proxy forces in third countries like Afghanistan.
Indian officials have for years demanded that Pakistan take action against Lashkar-e-Taiba and its founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who lives openly in Lahore. Mr. Menon, the Indian security adviser, said in New York that Mr. Sharif had promised to take action against those responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Mr. Menon said the tone of the talks was friendly, but added: “As for how useful and productive the meeting was, I think the only proof will be in the months to come.”
Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from New Delhi, and Somini Sengupta from New York.