The treaty was signed in 1972 in
Simla (also spelt "Shimla" in India) by
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the
President of Pakistan, and
Indira Gandhi, the
Prime Minister of India. Some of the major outcomes of the Simla Agreement are: • Both countries will "settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations". India has, many a times, maintained that Kashmir dispute is a bilateral issue and must be settled through bilateral negotiations as per Simla Agreement, 1972 and thus, had denied any third party intervention even that of United Nations. • The agreement converted the cease-fire line of 17 December 1971 into the
Line of Control (LOC) between India and Pakistan and it was agreed that "neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations". Many Indian bureaucrats have later argued that a tacit agreement, to convert this LOC into international border, was reached during a one-on-one meeting between the two heads of government. Pakistani bureaucrats have denied any such thing. This identification of a new "cease-fire line" by both the states has been argued by India as making
United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan insignificant. As according to India, the purpose of UNMOGIP was to monitor the cease-fire line as identified in
Karachi agreement of 1949 which no longer exists. Pakistan has a different take on this issue and both countries still host the UN mission. The agreement has not prevented the relationship between the two countries from deteriorating to the point of armed conflict, most recently in the
Kargil War of 1999. In
Operation Meghdoot of 1984 India seized all of the inhospitable
Siachen Glacier region where the frontier had been clearly not defined in the agreement (possibly as the area was thought too barren to be controversial); this was considered as a violation of the Simla Agreement by Pakistan. Most of the subsequent deaths in the
Siachen Conflict have been from natural disasters, e.g. avalanches in 2010,
2012, and
2016. == Text ==