'Pak ceded control of Gilgit to China'
WASHINGTON: An American scholar who has caused a kerfuffle in the strategic community by reporting the presence of Chinese troops in the disputed northern areas of ***************** Kashmir is insisting that Islamabad has ceded control of the area to Beijing despite denials from both sides.
Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, followed up a rebuttal of his article about Beijing's control of Pakistan-held territories by conceding that China had not deployed combat soldiers, but "there has been an influx of construction, engineering and communication units of the People's Liberation Army into Gilgit-Baltistan, under the command of the Xinjiang military district, totalling at least 7,000 military personnel."
"In addition, several thousand P. L.A. troops are said to be stationed in the Khunjerab Pass on the Xinjiang border to protect Karakoram Highway construction crews, with ready access to Gilgit-Baltistan," Harrison wrote, adding, "the impact of such a large foreign presence in a thinly populated, undeveloped region has been profound.To local political activists, this adds up to a creeping process of de facto Chinese control over a region where Islamabad claims nominal authority but lacks the infrastructure to exercise it."
Harrison was responding to denials from Pakistani officials, who maintained that he was trying to mislead readers by describing Chinese engineers as army troops.
Read more: 'Pak ceded control of Gilgit to China' - The Times of India 'Pak ceded control of Gilgit to China' - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: An American scholar who has caused a kerfuffle in the strategic community by reporting the presence of Chinese troops in the disputed northern areas of ***************** Kashmir is insisting that Islamabad has ceded control of the area to Beijing despite denials from both sides.
Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, followed up a rebuttal of his article about Beijing's control of Pakistan-held territories by conceding that China had not deployed combat soldiers, but "there has been an influx of construction, engineering and communication units of the People's Liberation Army into Gilgit-Baltistan, under the command of the Xinjiang military district, totalling at least 7,000 military personnel."
"In addition, several thousand P. L.A. troops are said to be stationed in the Khunjerab Pass on the Xinjiang border to protect Karakoram Highway construction crews, with ready access to Gilgit-Baltistan," Harrison wrote, adding, "the impact of such a large foreign presence in a thinly populated, undeveloped region has been profound.To local political activists, this adds up to a creeping process of de facto Chinese control over a region where Islamabad claims nominal authority but lacks the infrastructure to exercise it."
Harrison was responding to denials from Pakistani officials, who maintained that he was trying to mislead readers by describing Chinese engineers as army troops.
Read more: 'Pak ceded control of Gilgit to China' - The Times of India 'Pak ceded control of Gilgit to China' - The Times of India
When r we calling our NLI (Nothern Light Infantry... now part of PA coz of the great service and sacrifise during kargil)and army back frm skardu and siachin
