Tashkent Declaration

Tashkent Declaration, accord signed on January 10, 1966, by India’s Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri (who died the next day) and Pakistan’s Pres. Mohammad Ayub Khan, ending the war between Pakistan and India that occurred from August 1965 to September 1965. A cease-fire had been secured by the United Nations Security Council on September 22, 1965.

Skirmishes between India and Pakistan began in April 1965 and escalated into major hostilities in August, when Ayub launched an operation to infiltrate Pakistan’s forces into the disputed region of Kashmir so as to drive an insurgency against Indian rule. India responded strongly, and the two countries fought a widening conflict in which both sides won notable victories and seized territory while also experiencing considerable losses of soldiers and material. The insurgency that Pakistan hoped would develop in Kashmir also failed to take root. At the time Pakistan and India agreed to a cease-fire, the conflict was considered by observers to have reached a stalemate. However, because Pakistan had initiated the attack in Kashmir that began the war, the war was seen as a strategic and diplomatic failure for Ayub, and Shastri was lauded across India.

In order to secure a more permanent settlement of the conflict, a meeting was held at Tashkent in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (present-day Uzbekistan) in January 1966. The agreement was mediated by Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin, who had invited Shastri and Ayub to Tashkent. The two men, as the Tashkent Declaration states, expressed “their firm resolve to restore normal and peaceful relations between their countries and to promote understanding and friendly relations between their peoples.” The declaration included the following pledges, agreed to by Ayub and Shastri:

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• To “exert all efforts to create good neighborly relations between India and Pakistan in accordance with the United Nations Charter”
• To “settle…disputes through peaceful means” and “not to have recourse to force”
• To withdraw “all armed personnel” no later than February 25, 1966, and to move those personnel “to the positions they held prior to 5 August 1965,” with both countries to “observe the cease-fire terms on the cease-fire line”
• To maintain cross-border relations “based on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of each other”
• To “discourage any propaganda directed against the other country, and…encourage propaganda which promotes the development of friendly relations between the two countries”
• To return the countries’ respective high commissioners to their posts and restore “the normal functioning of diplomatic missions” while also observing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961
• To “consider measures towards the restoration of economic and trade relations, communications, as well as cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan”
• To repatriate prisoners of war
• To “continue the discussion of questions relating to the problems of refugees and evictions/illegal immigrations,” to “create conditions which will prevent the exodus of people,” and to “discuss the return of the property and assets taken over by either side in connexion with the conflict”
• To “continue meetings both at the highest and at other levels on matters of direct concern to both countries”

The declaration codifying what Shastri and Ayub agreed to at Tashkent was registered with the United Nations Secretariat on March 22, 1966.

In Pakistan the outcomes of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 and the Tashkent Declaration were significant. The country had entered the war with the belief that India would still be recovering from the losses it had experienced during the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and that Pakistan would achieve an easy victory. At that time Pakistan was also strengthened by its military partnership with the United States, which had enabled it to significantly upgrade its weaponry. But when the U.S. stopped providing aid to Pakistan during the war, claiming that Pakistan had violated U.S. restrictions when it used U.S. weapons against India, Pakistan became increasingly dependent on China for weapons, which had long-term geopolitical effects in the region.

Pakistani officials were also divided in their views of the Tashkent Declaration. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s foreign minister, took a hard-line stance and was against signing an agreement, while Ayub, who was eventually blamed for what was believed in Pakistan to be an unfavourable compromise, went ahead with the agreement. These differences led to Bhutto’s removal from Ayub’s government; Bhutto would then go on to form the Pakistan People’s Party, which would play a key role in Pakistan politics for decades. Ayub was forced to resign in 1969.

In India the accomplishment of the declaration was overshadowed by Shastri’s death in Tashkent on January 11, 1966, the day after he signed it. Controversy continues to surround his death, which was attributed to cardiac arrest at the time. Multiple conspiracy theories abound, and the Indian government has refused to declassify documents related to the matter. Shastri’s death was followed by the death (in an airplane crash) of India’s foremost nuclear scientist, Homi Bhabha, 13 days later; the timing furthered the conspiracy theories, though none have been proven. The agreement itself was criticized because it did not include a no-war pact or any renunciation of guerrilla aggression in Kashmir.

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Despite these controversies and criticism, the Tashkent Declaration was successful in helping to de-escalate tensions between India and Pakistan, and it brought to an end a costly conflict that highlighted the military inexperience of both countries.