The Director-Generals of military operations (DGMO) of India and Pakistan will meet for the first time since 1947 on December 24 in an effort to work out a mechanism to defuse tension and uphold the ceasefire along the line of Control (loC) in Jammu & Kashmir.
India accepted Pakistan’s offer to hold such talks and Indian DGMO lt General Vinod Bhatia will meet his counterpart Major-General Amir Riaz on the Pakistani side on the Wagah border in Punjab on December 24. Both the officers agreed to hold talks after talking to each other on the hotline, officials said on Tuesday adding the DGMOs talk to each other on the phone on every Tuesday.
The DGMOs will discuss measures to maintain ceasefire that came into force along the 198-km International Border (IB) in Jammu & Kashmir, the778-km line of Control (loC) and the 110-km Actual Ground Position line (AGPl) in the Siachen-Saltoro Ridge on November 26, 2003.
Both the countries maintained the ceasefire for the last many years as a confidence building measure till ceasefire violations by Pakistan some months back after five Indian soldiers were killed in Poonch sector. The lOC then saw more than 200 violations this year along the loC, with another 50 violations along the international border.
The decision to hold the DGMO-level meeting was taken during the talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif in New York in September, when ceasefire violations were taking place almost every day thereby leading to tension.
India was not in favour of Pakistan suggestion to include diplomats in the DGMO-level dialogue mechanism. Pakistan finally relented paving the way for the meeting on December 24, officials said.