GREECE and Turkey signed four agreements last week. Not being of an earth-shaking nature, this news item was duly reported on page 8 of this newspaper.

But one aspect of this report deserved closer attention: the two countries have long been arch enemies, and their mutual hatred goes back to the earlier part of the last century when Greece won its freedom from the Ottoman Empire, and then joined the Allies when they invaded a prostate Turkey after the First World War. Rightly or wrongly, the Turks felt betrayed while the Greeks thought they were avenging centuries of occupation by their neighbour.

Another bitterly divisive element in their rivalry has been Cyprus: the Greeks view its forcible partition as an aggressive act aimed at dividing a Greek island while the Turks feel it to be their duty to protect the Turkish minority from Greek oppression. Finally, both sides have territorial claims on some of the islands in the Aegean Sea. As usual in such bitter historical feuds, both think they are right and the other side is totally wrong.

Given these differences, this dispute was one of the constants in international relations through most of the 20th century. For decades, the Greeks thwarted the Turkish bid to enter the European Union, while the Turks missed no opportunity to block Greek ambitions whenever they could. The first signs of a thaw came last year when earthquakes hit both countries and caused enormous damage, particularly in Turkey. The Greeks immediately sent assistance to their neighbour. When a quake struck Greece, the Turks were quick to reciprocate.

Against this backdrop of animosity that has coloured relations between the two nations for generations, it took a genuine act of statesmanship for their leaders to go against the flow of public opinion and take the first, tentative step towards peace. The agreements signed recently may not in themselves be very important, but they signal a change in the atmospherics in the region. Wisely, they have not tried to tackle the knotty question of Cyprus and the Aegean islands immediately, preferring to improve relations through trade and cultural links before embarking on tough negotiations to resolve the other outstanding issues.

This pragmatic approach could serve as a model for India and Pakistan. If two bitter foes like Turkey and Greece can begin a process to end their long-running dispute, surely, the leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad suffer from a blinkered vision that does not permit them to see the wider world as they pursue their narrow agenda. Like moles, they burrow deeper and deeper into the ground without paying attention to the changes taking place on the surface.

Pakistan is fixated on a 'Kashmir-first-and-last' policy that precludes discussing any other issue with India, while India is willing to discuss everything else except Kashmir. In actual fact, India is currently refusing to discuss anything on account of its reservations about the 'legitimacy' of Pakistan's military government. This is a myopic view, and one that seeks only to score points. In fact, the reality is that this is probably the best time to negotiate a settlement of all outstanding issues.

Traditionally, the Pakistani military has called the shots on Kashmir and Afghanistan, even when elected governments have been in the saddle. Neither Nawaz Sharif nor Benazir Bhutto could significantly alter the official policy in our relations (or lack of them) with India. In her first stint, there was a narrow window of opportunity for Ms Bhutto in 1989 when she signed an agreement with Rajiv Gandhi in Islamabad to end hostilities on the Siachen glacier. This was accompanied with a flurry of other agreements dealing with trade, culture and tourism. Unfortunately, the Indian government soon went back on this accord, and the following year a full-fledged uprising broke out in Indian-occupied Kashmir. The last decade has seen bloodshed on an unprecedented scale as freedom fighters have escalated their activities, and Indian security forces have clamped down ruthlessly.

Even if stark economic compulsions have gone unheeded, the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998 have lent greater urgency to the need to resolve this conflict. But the Indian refusal to talk to a military regime flies in the face of the political realities of Pakistan. One reason why Benazir Bhutto was sacked in 1990 was the perception in GHQ that she was "soft" on Kashmir. Nawaz Sharif, too, was kept on a short leash, despite his avowed desire to make peace with our neighbour. The battle on the Kargil heights effectively derailed the nascent peace process begun earlier last year with the famous bus trip taken by the Indian prime minister from Amritsar to Lahore.

Given the pre-eminence of the army in our dealings with India, it makes eminent sense for New Delhi to agree to negotiations now. The Indian leadership is well aware that ultimately, it is the army high command that will determine the course of any future talks from the Pakistan side, irrespective of who is occupying the Prime minister's House in Islamabad. Mr Vajpayee and his colleagues would do well to remember that it took Richard Nixon, a right-wing Republican president, to re-establish ties with Communist China after decades of hostility. A liberal democratic initiative would have been unacceptable to the American establishment. Similarly, the Pakistan army can deliver on a deal without the hawks going on the rampage.

Clearly, the Indian government feels that they are in control of the insurgency in Kashmir, and they are probably right in this assessment. But the price India pays will not be restricted to the Vale: right or wrong, the Kashmir dispute will continue to poison relations between the two countries, as well as preventing any regional grouping to work effectively in South Asia. As the bigger and more powerful party in the dispute, it is for India to take the lead and set the pace for a peace process. Saying that Pakistan has to somehow 're-establish trust' between the two countries is a clear cop-out as there was very little trust to begin with.

Peace will only dawn on the subcontinent when the leaders of both countries begin to comprehend that far more than Kashmir is involved. Without peace, neither country will reach its potential as each squanders billions on defence every year. After all, if arch-enemies like Greece and Turkey can start talking, why can't we?