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CNN Sunday Morning

Indian and Pakistani Border Troops Exchange Gun Fire

Aired December 30, 2001 - 08:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Now to another developing story we continue to follow, the tension on the border dividing India and Pakistan. Rival troops exchanged gun fire overnight, and the fear of war is escalating. We get the details live now from CNN's Michael Holmes, who joins us from New Delhi, India -- Michael.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Marty, good evening to you from New Delhi. Today, a very important meeting for the India Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Essentially, he called together all opposition parties. What he wanted was to very publicly shore up domestic political support for how he's handled this crisis with Pakistan so far, and how he intends to handle it in the future.

Essentially, it went as expected, and that is, he got the support he wanted: A unified front by opposition parties, including the main opposition party, the Congress (ph) party, to say that he is doing a good job and they are united behind him should he take the nation to war. Now the rhetoric today was not scaled down per se, but it is significant to point out it was not necessarily scaled up, either.

Now, Mr. Vajpayee didn't, again, rule out war. However, he did say that he wanted diplomacy to take its course. He wanted to avoid war at any costs. Feelings after the meeting were that -- as one parliamentary spokesman said, that the Indian military positions along the line of control and elsewhere were, in his words, "200 percent defensive." India going to great pains to say it's not being the aggressor in this situation.

Mr. Vajpayee, however, very strong again on what he called, "Pakistan's sponsorship of terror against India." And, also, we should point out that he did take that phone call from the U.S. President George W. Bush. And afterwards he said that he would not accept U.S. endorsement of Pakistan's actions against militant or terrorist groups a carte blanche. That India would make its own -- what he called "independent assessment" of what Pakistan has done or will do. He says that so far he has not seen the evidence that enough has been done. There's an awful lot more to go on the diplomatic front.

Meanwhile, the troops have still been moving up to the line of control -- Indian troops. That was part of the deployment that's been going on for some days. It was expected to end today. And, as you pointed out in your introduction, there were small arms fired across the line of control between Indian and Pakistan troops this very morning. Now that's where -- where there is concern. While both sides say they don't want to go to war, both acknowledge that the very smallest thing, a skirmish on the line of control, could so easily escalate out of control and develop into who knows what -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: Michael Holmes joining us from New Delhi. Thanks very much.

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