Pakistan's press on Tuesday hailed India's cease-fire offer to Kashmiri militants as "enormously significant" but questioned its sincerity.
"If it is another one of those seemingly significant but actually hollow signals Delhi has been sending out from time to time, then the Ramadan cease-fire will only prove a lucid interval before the madness of killing begins again," the News said in an editorial.
It said the "olive branch" from Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was "an extraordinary gesture that does not gel with the usual policy successive governments in Delhi subscribed to and implemented without ever computing the costs."
It said Sunday's unilateral offer of a truce during the Ramadan holy month was a break from India's "wonky assumption" that all Muslim militants in Kashmir were Pakistani infiltrators and therefore not to be negotiated with.
"What is (Vajpayee's) game? It is fairly obvious. He wants to cement his government's credentials in the world as a 'reasonable' entity," the News said.
The Nation daily said "New Delhi will have to do much more before the announcement is taken seriously by anybody."
"Unless one sees a genuine change of heart in the Indian leadership, no signs of which are yet visible, moves of the type are bound to be interpreted as attempts at dividing the freedom movement."
Paksitan's foreign office on Monday described the offer as a tactical ploy in India's long-term goal of imposing a military solution in Kashmir, but admitted it would be watching developments carefully.
The leading Hizbul Mujahideen militant group declared a unilateral cease-fire in July only to abandon it two weeks later after India refused to include Pakistan in negotiations.
The Hizbul said India's unprecedented offer was worthless without a commitment to tripartite talks including Islamabad and the Kashmiris.
The Nation noted that Vajpayee's offer made "no mention of the need for a dialogue with Pakistan which is one of the three principal parties to the dispute."
Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly offered dialogue to resolve the nuclear neighbors' 53-year-old dispute over Kashmir -- ISLAMABAD (AFP)
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