The Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani of course would not remember but I once bumped into him at a dinner and pointed out the futility of fighting a war in Siachen. He took a hawkish line and eventually got irritated and asked me to resolve the issue with the Indians if I could. I told him that he was the Army Chief and I was nobody and the initiative had to come from him.

Following the April 7 sad debacle in Gayari, resulting in the unexpected death of 140 persons by an avalanche, former premier Nawaz Sharif has taken an even more belligerent stance and has suggested a unilateral withdrawal by Pakistan. He said that Pakistan and India were spending billions of rupees on defense, which could be diverted for the prosperity of the people. General Kayani then had to intervene by calling for a negotiated end to the confrontation and agreeing that demilitarization was an ideal option but it must be mutual.

The accumulated tab for the Siachen conflict now exceeds $5 billion, which is the equivalent of Pakistan’s entire annual defense budget. The casualty figure for each side is estimated at around 4,000 soldiers; the total casualty count for Pakistan in the 1965 war was 3,800.