NEW DELHI India and Pakistan will make a fresh effort his week to end a face-off on the world's highest battlefield which has left both armies bleeding. The top defence officials of the arch-foes open talks on November 6 in New Delhi to find a way out of the 14-year-old hostilities in the no-man's-land Siachen Glacier. Located 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) above sea level, Siachen in northern Kashmir is the unlikely setting for an ongoing battle where, military experts say, the inhospitable terrain and climate have claimed more soldiers' lives than gunshots.

If there is one place where there is scope for understanding between India and Pakistan, it is on the Glacier, said Satish Nambiar, director of the United Services Institute, a New Delhi military thinktank. Both sides have trouble maintaining troops, both are suffering casualties and so much money has been sunk in, said Nambiar, a former indian army commander. In the run-up to the talks, New Delhi has reported that it repulsed several Pakistani attacks in the 76-km (47-mile) long Glacier. Islamabad has dubbed the claims rubbish.

Meawhile, a man was killed and six people were wounded in fresh firing by Pakistani troops in the troubled Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir, a Indian Defence spokesman said on Tuesday. The dead man was from the government reserve engineering force in the Tangdar sector of Kupwara district, 105 km (66 miles) north of Srinagar, the summer capital, the spokesman said.

Pakistani troops fired some 590 mortar and artillery rounds, as well as 3,500 rounds of small-arms fire, at Indian positions from across the disputed line of control that demarcates the territorial limits between India and Pakistan, he said. (Reuter)