The Simla Agreement

The Simla Agreement was signed between India and Pakistan on July 2, 1972. It followed from the war between the two nations in the previous year that had led to the independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. The agreement laid down the principles that should govern their future relations. It also conceived steps to be taken for further normalization of mutual relations. Most importantly, it bound the two countries "to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations. The Kashmir dispute again came to the core-issue when India and Pakistan signed the controversial Simla Accord in July 1972 in the wake of the IndoPakistanian war on 1971. The accord converted the 1949 UN "Cease-fire Line" into the Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India which however did not affect the status of the disputed territory: "In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of December 17, 1971, shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognized position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations." -Para 6 of the Agreement lists a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir as one of the outstanding question awaiting for a settlement. Para 4 talks of a Line of Conflict as distinguished from an international border . Further it explicitly protects the recognized position of either side. The recognized position of Pakistan is the one which is recognized by the United Nations and the world community. -Article 1 obviously refers to the Kashmir region when it talks of the basic issues and causes of the conflict which have bedeviled the relations between the two countries for the last thirty years. Both sides further underook "to refrain from threat or the use of force in violation of this Line."

The treaty was signed in Simla, India, by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the President of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India. The agreement also paved the way for diplomatic recognition of Bangladesh by Pakistan. The agreement has been the basis of all subsequent bilateral talks between India and Pakistan.

The agreement did not mention prisoners of war, and a supplementary Simla agreement on repatriation was signed in 1974. Subsequently India released 90,368 Pakistani military prisoners of war, including 195 accused of war crimes or genocide, and a similar number of civilian internees captured in East Pakistan.

The agreement has not prevented the relationship between the two countries from deteriorating to the point of armed conflict, most recently in the Kargil War of 1999. In Operation Meghdoot of 1984 India seized most of the inhospitable Siachen Glacier region where the frontier had not been clearly defined in the agreement (possibly as the area was thought too barren to be controversial), though most of the subsequent deaths in the Siachen Conflict have been from natural disasters, eg avalanches in 2010 and 2012.