New Delhi, May 24: The political leadership led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today told the defence secretary and a team of officials headed for Pakistan to make an effort to structure peace in the contested Siachen Glacier with determination.

Singh chaired a meeting of the cabinet committee on security (CCS) in the operations room of the ministry of defence late this evening. The meeting was summoned to give the defence secretary, Ajai Vikram Singh, and his team the political brief for the ninth round of talks for a military de-escalation in Siachen.

The military stand-off in what is reckoned to be the world’s highest and coldest battlefield since 1984 has taken a heavy toll on both India and Pakistan.

“We have reviewed the talks. Let’s see if there can be forward movement,” defence minister Pranab Mukherjee said after the two-hour meet during which presentations were made by the directorate general of military operations.

“In the current atmosphere of confidence-building measures, some progress is to be expected but it cannot be said right now that there will be substantial forward movement,” a senior official who attended the briefing said.

The CCS noted that the talks on Siachen were being held when both New Delhi and Islamabad were not harping on stated positions with the regularity of the past.

It was important that the ceasefire along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and in Siachen has held since November 2003. This is the bedrock on which the current edifice of peace is sought to be built.

Last month’s talks between Singh and President Pervez Musharraf also described the peace process as “irreversible” and pointed out that it was important for both countries to be able to demonstrate progress in making that peace lasting, the CSS noted.

In the last round of the defence secretary level talks ? that are part of the composite dialogue process agreed upon between New Delhi and Islamabad ? the officials did touch upon disengagement and on working out “modalities for redeployment” of troops on either side of the Saltoro Ridge.

The Indian Army holds the commanding heights of the Saltoro, that abuts the glacier. Much of the groundwork for the path to peace that the process in Siachen has to traverse has already been done in the several rounds of talks.

Experts who were involved in the talks in the past describe that path as going from de-escalation to disengagement and eventual demilitarisation. The ceasefire is symbolic of the de-escalation.

But India maintains that Pakistan must authenticate positions on a map before a pullback can be ordered.