The faded roadmap to India-Pakistan peace

By Myra MacDonald - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - India and Pakistan may have begun talking to each other again but as yet there is no clear vision on where those talks might lead.

As a result many analysts are looking to a roadmap agreed in secret two years ago -- and which only really came to light this year -- as probably the best model around for a peace deal.

"It's a good deal for Pakistan, for India, for the Kashmiris," said Bruce Riedel, who led a review of strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan for President Barack Obama.

Negotiated by advisers to former president Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the accord made an ambitious attempt to lay out a framework for peace in Kashmir, which has been divided between the two countries since independence.

While there was to be no exchange of territory, borders were to be made irrelevant by encouraging the movement of people and trade across the Line of Control which divides Kashmir.

At the same time, a joint mechanism would be set up which would allow both countries to supervise Kashmir affairs.

One source familiar with the deal said there was no evidence it would ever have worked -- the exact nature of the joint mechanism, for example, was never agreed.

But the negotiating process alone functioned as an important "shock-absorber" between the two nuclear-armed countries, which have fought three full-scale wars and faced many spikes in tensions, most recently after last year's attacks on Mumbai.

According to Riedel, who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, western diplomats would like to see them getting back into the position they reached in 2007.

Yet doing so is difficult for both countries.

Pakistan's civilian government would find it hard to embrace a deal negotiated by Musharraf after fighting to force the former army general out of office last year.

"Politically it would be very difficult to accept this was Musharraf's achievement," said journalist and analyst Steve Coll, who was the first to write in detail about the accord.

And in India, there is little public support for peace moves after the three-day assault by Pakistani gunmen on Mumbai.

"There is a hardening of posture. Outside of Manmohan Singh, there are no doves left in this government," said Praveen Swami at The Hindu newspaper -- though he added that a return to the principles of 2007 would be great from an Indian point of view.

India is also dubious about whether any deal with Pakistan's civilian government would be backed by the army, adding a layer of complication which did not exist with Musharraf.