In 1963, after Pakistan ceded the 5,180 km2 (2,000 square mile) Shaksgam Valley to China in a border agreement, Pakistan began allowing Western expeditions east of Mount K2. [26] In 1957, Pakistan authorized a British expedition led by Eric Shipton to approach the Siachen Glacier through bilafond La and receive saltoro Kangri. [27] Five years later, a Japanese-Pakistani expedition brought two Japanese climbers and one Pakistani climber to Saltoro Kangri. [28] These are early traits in this special Game of Oropolitik. He writes that the two countries have come close three times to an agreement on the Siachen Glacier – in 1989, 1992, and then in 2006. First, the agreement was not reached during the Rajiv Gandhi era (1989) due to Pakistani disagreements, and during the PV Narasimha Rao era (1992) it was left to the next round table. In a heated debate over the reasons for the failure of the two sides to reach an agreement between the UpA government Manmohan Singh and the Musharraf regime in Pakistan during the last attempt in 2006, Saran said the two sides had even agreed to authenticate the ground positions of the troops before the agreement broke down. Saran`s revelations are important because it was the first time an Indian official at the time accepted that the Siachen and Sir Creek accords, often referred to as the “low fruit” of the vast bilateral dialogue between the two countries, were a reality. In 2015, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri wrote in his memoir “Neither a Hawk nor a Pigeon” about the agreements, with a report on the Pakistani side of these negotiations.

== Map showing the CFL orientation superimposed on a satellite image shows the CFL ending at NJ9842. [25] The extension of this line “from north to glaciers” never appeared on a relevant map related to the 1948 or 1972 agreements, only in the text. India and Pakistan almost agreed on a demilitarization of the Siachen Glacier: 1989, 1992 and 2006, says former Foreign Minister Shyam Saran in a book presented here Wednesday by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed by former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon. One wonders how many policymakers knew that the Siachen Glacier flowed east of Saltoro Rank and that there was not a single Pakistani on the Siachen Glacier – it never was. As many appreciated the strategic importance of the Saltoro Range and the enormous disadvantage for India to leave it. It is more lamentable that no one has bothered to learn this when such agreements have been drawn up for 17 years since 1989. In 2006, Saran, then foreign minister, reached an agreement with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Mohammad Khan, on the orders of Manmohan Singh`s government, which attempted to withdraw Indian troops from Siachen. He insisted that the agreement and the annex be signed with the main agreement, which expressly states that the annex has the same legal validity as the treaty itself.

Singh asked Saran to draft the agreement and gain consensus from major Indian interest groups. The former foreign minister conducted several consultations with high-level bureaucrats and ministers in the ministries of defense, interior and finance. The head of the army, General J.J. Singh, and all the heads of the secret service were embarked. “To give additional strength to the document, we insisted and the Pakistani side agreed that the agreement and the annexer be signed and that the main agreement explicitly states that the annexer has the same legal validity as the agreement itself,” said Saran, who also worked as an adviser to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Despite the high costs, India remains present as Pakistani control of Siachen would allow them to place radars and monitor all Indian Air Force activities in Ladakh. It would also unify the Chinese and Pakistani fronts and allow them to launch a combined attack against India in the event of a conflict. . . .