Washington: India and Pakistan are facing their best prospects for peace in years due to recent confidence-building measures, communications and trade agreements, former US Ambassador to India Frank Wisner has told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Wisner, now the executive vice president for external relations at the AIG Insurance Group, said leaders of both countries have sent signals "to their constituencies - to the national security structures, to the press, to members of elected Assemblies - that now is the time to seek an opportunity to make peace with each other.

"This is an absolutely extraordinary opportunity, and I believe it wouldn't be where it is today had the two leaderships not made a decision that it was in their interests to bring matters this far along," Wisner told the hearing on Wednesday (Jan 28, 2004).

Wisner cautioned that the US should facilitate negotiations between the two, but not act as a mediator.

"We shouldn't be out in front," he said. "We're not going to find the right solutions, but we certainly can help people think."

Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, however, gave a more cautious assessment of the situation. While agreeing that it was "the most remarkable opportunity we've seen in South Asia for many years", he warned, "Clearly there are many forces in both countries, as well as outside, which could derail this effort.

"I hope the present detente in South Asia does move forward. But hope is not a policy," said Cohen.

"In six months, we'll know whether the forces in both India and Pakistan opposed to a South Asian peace initiative are able to sabotage it. By then, it will be feasible for militants to infiltrate into India from the Pakistani side of the line of control, and the Indian elections will have been concluded, probably with a fresh mandate for (Prime Minister Atal Bihari) Vajpayee," he said.

Michael Krepon, founding president of Washington-based think tank, the Henry L Stimson Centre, outlined the danger of Kashmir serving as a flashpoint for the use of nuclear weapons.

Until recently, he said, the Pakistani Government had supported militant groups in an effort to keep the pressure on India and try to leverage a more favourable outcome in Kashmir.

He said Pakistan's and India's attempts to contain the escalation of tensions "has depended on two very, very risky assumptions" - that militant groups would not trigger a war-provoking incident, and that Indian troops would not cross into Pakistani territory except for major offenses.

To reduce the risk of nuclear confrontation, Krepon said both sides need to continue their ceasefire and Pakistan should continue to refrain from supporting militant groups.

He also said Pakistan needs to "stop holding nuclear risk-reduction measures hostage to a satisfactory outcome on Kashmir", and India should engage Pakistan "in a serious and substantive way on Kashmir" in order to demonstrate responsible nuclear stewardship.