The Indian government is likely to allow the resumption of bilateral cricket matches against Pakistan within a week, an Indian cricket board member said on Thursday.
It would be another important step toward normalisation of relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, which have not played each other outside an international tournament since 1999.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India has formally applied to the government for permission to play Pakistan in bilateral matches and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has given his approval, a member of the board confirmed.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the board member said an announcement from the government that it has approved the restoration of cricket ties was expected within a week. The Sports Ministry is part of the decision-making process.
India and Pakistan played each other during the World Cup in March in South Africa, and previously in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh in June 2000, but since a Pakistan tour of India in the spring of 1999 – before the two nations’ militaries fought each other for 11 weeks across the Kashmir frontier – India has refused to let its cricket team play Pakistan outside of a world or major regional event.
According to the International Cricket Council calendar, India was supposed to tour Pakistan in April, but the New Delhi government refused to allow it, citing security reasons.
Previously, the government had simply said that allowing games of cricket — a passion in both countries– was not in India’s national interest as long as militant violence continues in India’s portion of Kashmir.
India accuses Pakistan of funding, training and arming militants and helping them cross the frontier from its portion of the Himalayan region of Jammu-Kashmir. Kashmir is divided between them by a 1972 cease-fire line, but claimed in its entirety by both.
Pakistan denies that it materially aids the militants, but says it morally and diplomatically supports their cause of fighting to merge India’s Jammu-Kashmir state with Pakistan.
The dispute is the main focus of five decades of enmity, and two wars, between India and Pakistan.
The prime ministers of the two countries have recently begun communicating with each other and discussing steps to normalise their relations before possible peace talks.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali had suggested allowing cricket ties to resume, and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee had told Parliament last Friday that he would leave it to the people who handle sports. It was the first indication that he may not object. – Sapa