NEW DELHI – The United States would like to help India and Pakistan focus less on each other and more on the terrorism threat, but the two countries prefer to settle their differences themselves, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday. "We're always interested in that," Gates said as he flew to New Delhi for talks today with India's prime minister, defence chief and other officials. "Regional stability is very important for everybody involved. I think it's clear that both sides prefer to deal with this bilaterally." Mutual suspicion drives heavy defence spending and large standing armies for both countries. But Gates said India and Pakistan had demonstrated admirable restraint since the three-day terror attack more than a year ago in Mumbai, India. India immediately blamed terror groups in Pakistan, and Pakistan has charged seven men. The siege of the financial centre killed 166 people and set back efforts by India and Pakistan to resolve a deal over disputed Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over control of the Himalayan region since their partition, when British colonial rule ended in 1947. A dozen Kashmiri insurgent groups, which seek either independence or merger with Pakistan, have been fighting Indian rule since 1989. In December, Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony said India had withdrawn 30,000 soldiers from Kashmir as rebel attacks decreased over the past two years, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers are believed to remain. Rebel violence broke out anew this month. On Tuesday, the Pakistani military said Indian troops fired across the border running through Kashmir, killing one Pakistani soldier and wounding another. The Indian military said its troops fired in self-defence after coming under attack from Pakistani soldiers, the second such reported incident in as many days. India and Pakistan control parts of Kashmir and both claim the whole region. The two countries began talks in 2004 to find a solution to the dispute, but New Delhi suspended them after the Mumbai attacks. Still, Gates told reporters travelling with him, "even within the framework of that attack and the suspicions that it created, the two sides have managed to keep the tensions between them at a manageable level". Meanwhile, Gates said it was unlikely Taliban leaders would reconcile with Afghanistan's government but that lower ranking insurgents might be open to making peace with Kabul. Gates welcomed plans announced on Sunday by President Hamid Karzai's government to launch a new bid at making peace with Islamic gunmen group, but said Taliban chief Mullah Omar and other leaders would be reluctant to lay down their arms until circumstances changed on the battlefield. "Just speaking personally, I'd be very surprised to see a reconciliation with Mullah Omar," Gates told reporters aboard his plane en route to India. "I think it's our view that until the Taliban leadership sees a change in the momentum and begins to see that they are not going to win, that the likelihood of reconciliation at senior levels is not terribly great," he said. Those who left the insurgency needed assurances that their families would be protected from retaliation, he said. Gates and top commanders have said previously that reconciliation efforts stood little chance of success without halting the momentum of the insurgents. Karzai's new reconciliation plan will be announced ahead of a major international conference on Afghanistan due in London on January 28, his spokesman Waheed Omar said on Sunday.
