Documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian show the range of concessions Indians participating in the talks were ready to make. The strategic environment around Siachen has acquired additional dimensions since 2012 because of China’s presence and military cooperation with Pakistan.
India’s military position on the Siachen Glacier, one of the world’s highest battlefields, could have been fundamentally altered under a 2012 demilitarisation proposal that envisaged the withdrawal of Indian troops from the commanding heights of the Saltoro Ridge. The proposal has assumed renewed strategic significance in 2026 as China expands its infrastructure network in the Shaksgam Valley, north of the Siachen sector, and deepens military cooperation with Pakistan in the wider Karakoram region, the latest being the joint military training exercise between the Chinese PLA and Pakistan military, called Karakoram 2026, conducted from October 14 to October 22.
Documents accessed by this newspaper show that the withdrawal proposal, adopted at a Track 2 dialogue involving retired senior Indian and Pakistani military officers, diplomats and strategic affairs experts in Lahore in September 2012, envisaged a phased withdrawal by both armies, joint verification of existing military positions and a post-withdrawal monitoring mechanism. Had it been implemented, India would have vacated the heights overlooking the Siachen Glacier, relying on reciprocal Pakistani withdrawal and verification arrangements to prevent either side from reoccupying the demilitarised zone.
The proposal was not a bilateral agreement between the two governments and Ottawa, Canada, and the US-based Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, with support from institutions including the US National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. was never implemented. However, its detailed provisions raise questions about the military risks India would have faced had it withdrawn from the Saltoro Ridge, particularly in a region where China’s military and infrastructure presence has since expanded and its military cooperation with Pakistan has deepened.
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The initiative was organised by the University of The proposal was adopted at a meeting in Lahore from 23 to 25 September 2012, as part of the India-Pakistan Military Confidence Building Measures Project. The project’s final report records that participants held extensive discussions on Siachen and developed a specific proposal on the issue. The Lahore meeting was the culmination of a series of meetings held over nearly a year.
According to the project’s Phase 1 final report, the principal meetings took place in Dubai on 20-21 November 2011, Bangkok on 23-25 February 2012 and Lahore on 23-25 September 2012. Smaller workinggroup meetings were also held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on 21 April 2012, and Palo Alto, California, on 3031 July 2012. The Lahore meeting was the final meeting of Phase 1. Participants adopted the report, including the Siachen proposal, by consensus. The co-chairs, General Jehangir Karamat and Air Chief Marshal Shashi Tyagi, were to submit the findings to their respective governments. The proposal was not signed as a bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan.
THE AMERICAN HAND
The institutional composition of the initiative is also significant. The project was jointly organised by the University of Ottawa and the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, with support from the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the US National Defense University, the United States Institute of Peace and Stanford University. The NESA Center is part of the US Department of Defense’s network of regional security studies institutions, while the United States Institute of Peace was established by the US Congress as an independent national institute.
The Atlantic Council is an American foreign-policy think-tank with longstanding links to the country’s political, diplomatic and national-security establishment. Its board at the time included former CIA director R. James Woolsey. Former CIA director David Petraeus has also served on its board, while former CIA senior officer Marc Polymeropoulos later became a non-resident senior fellow. These associations do not establish that the Council acted on behalf of the CIA or the US government, but they illustrate its connections with the American foreign-policy and intelligence community.
Washington’s interest in the dispute was not confined to the participation of American institutions in the Track 2 exercise. On 9 April 2012, then US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that the United States was prepared to be supportive in any way that might be helpful if India and Pakistan wanted assistance in resolving the Siachen issue. This was in the aftermath of the May 2011 Abbottabad raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces, an operation that had significantly strained relations between Washington and Pakistan’s military establishment.
THE PARTICIPANTS AND THE PROPOSAL
The final report of the India-Pakistan Military Confidence-Building Measures Project says Track 2 discussions were designed not merely to follow official negotiations but also to explore ideas that governments might not yet be ready to discuss publicly, develop proposals and place them before official-level interlocutors for consideration. The report records that the two co-chairs, retired Pakistan Army chief General Jehangir Karamat and former Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Shashi Tyagi, would provide the findings to their respective governments.
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