AT some grave political risk, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has agreed in his talks with US President Bill Clinton to take concrete steps to restore the Line of Control between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. The main burden of Sharifs commitment being the pull-out of forces that had crossed the LoC and occupied the strategic hbights on the Indian side, he has obviously stirred the hornet's nest domestically as well as among the Kashmiri militant groups. The Pakistan People's Party and Jamaat-e-Islami have already been extremely vehement in their criticism of the Sharif-Clinton agreement while Laskar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, two of the four militant groups said to be fighting Indian troops in Kashmir, have stressed the point that the accord would have no impact on the battle-field. We realise that Nawaz Sharif might have difficulty selling it to his people; and particularly to the army, the latter having historically enjoyed not only a position of primacy in Pakistan but in this specific case also there has been a surmise that it might have apprised Prime Minister Sharif of the 'incursion on a post-facto basis'. If that is what happened then it would take some doing to assuage Pak army's feelings on the question.

All sorts of epithets are being hurled at him on his return from Washington, such as, he has committed a betrayal' to the people's cause or to the Kashmiri aspirations and that he has ignominiously buckled under US pressure. But to our understanding, Nawaz Sharif who could not have been blinkered to such spiky reactions at home before he sat to sign that joint statement with President Clinton still went ahead. And that is where he emerges as being his own man — desperate may be for a solution but sagacious, too.

The democratic and liberal forces in Pakistan whom Sharif had alienated earlier on must still come forward to help him with his initiatives to defuse tension along the Line of Control in Kashmir. The opposition political parties will be actually deemed to have reinforced the process if only they eschew the temptation of making a political capital out of Sharifs delicate situation. We are also hoping very much that the army will act with equanimity in deference to the two-thirds majority Nawaz Sharif commands in Pakistan parliament today.

India is urged by us to see that Nawaz Sharifs initiative does not go in vain. Whatever the nu-anced interpretation of the Sharif-Clinton joint statement it cannot quite drown the fact that Nawaz Sharif has provided good basis for resolution of the latest conflict in Kashmir.