'I was present at a meeting where he decided to permit the IAF to strike at Pakistan positions in Kargil, with the caveat that they should not cross the LoC.' 'Confident that the Indian Army would succeed, Mr Vajpayee was positioning himself to tell the world after the Kargil conflict was won that India did not violate the 'sanctity' of the LoC,' recalls Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's envoy in Islamabad in that eventful year, 1999.
Pakistan, which has propped up the new Taliban leadership, would be keen to use its influence over the group to neutralise India's presence in the region.
'It was a mission undertaken in darkness in every sense -- literally, because Afghanistan had no electricity at that time; and, metaphorically because Delhi historically dealt only with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and the foreign ministry's vast archives had nothing to offer on the culture and politics of the northern tribes in the Hindu Kush.'
'It was only relatively recently that Subhash Kapoor was able to secure the sources in India, Afghanistan and Cambodia, that allowed him to get the really highest level objects, and that helped propel him in recent years up the ranks.'
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