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Pakistani media calls Kargil a 'diplomatic fiasco'

The Pakistani media has castigated the Nawaz Sharief government for causing a diplomatic fiasco by failing to convince the world that those fighting in Kargil were 'Kashmiri freedom fighters' or that the Line of Control was not properly demarcated.

The Frontier Post, in an article yesterday, said: ''If the Kargil initiative had been part of some larger strategic design, it would have been possible to appreciate it. But the way it was handled diplomatically and on the media front was no less a fiasco.''

It said the Islamabad government first insisted that the fighters up on the Kargil hills were Mujahideens. After the US President Bill Clinton's phone call demanding that Pakistan withdraw its people, the government was saying that the commanding heights held by Pakistani troops were on the Pakistani side of the LoC and that the army had not crossed over into the Indian territory.

Previously the Pakistan government said that the flare-up was a manifestation of the larger Kashmir issue but now Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief has said the G-8 should view what was happening in Kargil in the context of ''India's past record of violation of the Line of Control''.

''Never before valiant fighters perched atop the world's highest battleground had been let down so miserably...it seems that the government of heavy mandate is incapable of comprehending that a diplomatic fiasco could turn out to be a national disaster,'' the daily said.

The Kargil Crisis

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