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FACTBOX: Highs and lows in Pakistan-India ties

Sun Nov 30, 2008 4:10am EST

(Reuters) - Tension is running high between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan after militants attacked India's commercial capital, Mumbai.

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India says it has proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks that killed nearly 200 people, raising the prospect of renewed confrontation between the countries.

Pakistan condemned the assault, denied any state agency was involved and assured India of full cooperation in investigations.

Following are some of the highs and lows in relations between the neighbors:

1947 - Britain divides its Indian empire into secular but mainly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, triggering one of the greatest and bloodiest migrations of modern history.

1947/48 - India and Pakistan go to their first war over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. The war ended with a U.N.-ordered ceasefire and resolution seeking a plebiscite for the people of Jammu and Kashmir to decide whether to become part of India or Pakistan.

1965 - India and Pakistan go to war over Kashmir. Fighting ends after United Nations calls for ceasefire.

1971 - Pakistan and India go to war a third time over East Pakistan, which became independent Bangladesh.

1972 - Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi sign agreement in Indian town of Simla to lay principles meant to govern relations.

1974 - India detonates its first nuclear device.

1990 - Indian army opens fire in Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar during protest against crackdown on separatism, killing 38 and spurring a revolt. India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending Islamist militants into Indian Kashmir. Pakistan denies that, saying it gives political, moral and diplomatic support to what it calls a Kashmiri freedom movement.

1998, May - India carries out five underground nuclear tests and announces plans to build a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan conducts six tests of its own in response.

1999

Feb - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee makes a historic bus ride to Pakistan for summit with Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

May - The two countries stand on the brink of their fourth war after India launches major counter-strike against Pakistani intruders dug in on mountains in Kargil in Indian Kashmir. 2000

July - Summit between Pakistani leader and army chief General Pervez Musharraf and Vajpayee in the Indian city of Agra ends in failure.

2001

Dec - Militants attack Indian parliament. Fourteen people, including the five assailants, are killed. India blames Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad and demands action against them. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers confront each other on the border.

2003 - Pakistan announces ceasefire along the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir. India welcomes the move.

2004 - The two countries launch a peace process that brings an improvement in diplomatic, sporting and trade links but no progress on Kashmir. Peace process comes under strain from occasional bomb attacks in India.

2008

July - India says Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency was behind a bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed 58 people.

Nov - Mumbai attacks bring tension to its highest level since the weeks following the December 2001 attack on India's parliament.

(Compiled by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Valerie Lee)



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