Indian and Pakistani border security officers began three-day talks in Delhi today
Indian and Pakistani troops across the International Border may start speaking to each other more frequently, and at lower levels as well to sort out local issues faster.
The decision was taken at the talks between the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Pakistan Rangers in New Delhi today. The Pakistani officers were led by Rangers Director General Umar Farooq Burki and the Indian side was led by BSF Director DK Pathak. The Director Generals of the BSF and Pakistan Rangers will hold discussions till Saturday.
It was the first meeting between India and Pakistan after the first high-level peace talks between the two countries collapsed at the eleventh hour a fortnight ago.
Pakistan Rangers raised the need of greater communication between the two border guarding troops at the meet in New Delhi today.
"Communication is now at the sector level, we are open to allowing communication at level lower - Battalion or even across some critical Border Out Post," a senior Home Ministry official told NDTV after the day-long negotiations with the Pakistani Rangers.
Coordination between troops on either side of the border has suffered amid a rise on border firing, with both countries blaming each other.
There is hope on either side that more communication could lead to less ceasefire violations and quieter borders. Since 2014, there have nearly 600 ceasefire violations on the International Border. And there have been nearly 100 attempts to infiltrate.
Both sides had expected a stormy meeting with allegations and counter-allegations. "It wasn't any of that, Pakistan did want joint investigation into few ceasefire violations, but later didn't push it," a top source told NDTV.
Last month, the first high-level peace talks in years between the National Security Advisers of the two countries were cancelled after a dispute over the agenda for those talks. India wanted to discuss terrorism-related issues and objected to Pakistan's intentions of meeting separatists from Kashmir. Pakistan insisted that it would raise Kashmir.