Timeline of flashpoints between uneasy 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 war over Kashmir. The war ends with a UN-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 fight their second war over Kashmir. Fighting ends after the United Nations calls for a ceasefire.
1971: Pakistan and India go to war a third time, this time over East Pakistan, which becomes 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.
1989: Separatist revolt starts in India-controlled Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending Islamist militants into Indian Kashmir, which Pakistan denies.
1998: India carries out nuclear tests. Pakistan carries out its own tests in response.
1999: India and Pakistan fight a brief but intense conflict in the mountains above Kargil on the Line of Control, the ceasefire line dividing Jammu and Kashmir.
July 2001: Summit between Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf and Vajpayee in Agra in India ends in failure.
2003: Pakistan and India agree a ceasefire on the Line of Control.
2004: The two countries launch a peace process.
July 2008: India blames Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency for a bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.
Feb. 2009: India cautiously welcomes Pakistan's investigation into the Mumbai attack. Pakistan admits for the first time, that the attack was launched and partly planned from Pakistan.
May 2009: India's new coalition government says it is up to Pakistan to take the first step towards better ties by cracking down on militants on its soil.
June 2009: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Russia. Singh tells Zardari that he wants him to ensure militants cannot operate from Pakistan.
July 2009: India and Pakistan agree to work together to fight terrorism and order their top diplomats to meet as often as needed.
Aug. 2009: India gives Pakistan a new dossier of evidence to investigate the Mumbai attacks and prosecute Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the three-day carnage.
Jan. 2010: Pakistan and Indian forces exchange fire across their border, the latest in a series of incidents raising tension between the two.
Feb. 2010: India offers new talks with Pakistan. The talks will be held at top diplomatic level of the two countries.
Feb. 13: A bomb in a bakery in the western Indian city of Pune kills 13 people. An Indian government official later says the foreign secretary talks would go on as scheduled.
Reuters
(China Daily 02/26/2010 page11)
