Kathmandu, June 13: In order to supplement the ongoing confidence building measures, a two-day meeting of retired Indian and Pakistani diplomats and military officials began here today to debate a whole range of issues including past confrontation between New Delhi and Islamabad. The meet will debate a range of topics from military dimension of Indo-Pak stand-off, politics and diplomacy, repercussions on South Asia of US-led war in Afghanistan and coercive diplomacy and Indo-Pak relations. Speakers at the meet, which include military analyst Gen Ashok K Mehta, former diplomat Satinder Lamba and former Pakistani foreign ministers Inam ul Haque and Sartaz Aziz presented their view point at the conference. According to one estimate presented during the conference, the Indo-Pak standoff in 2001-2002 cost 1.8 billion dollars to India and 1.2 billion dollars to Pakistan. Addressing the gathering, Pakistani analyst Ayesha Siddiqa Agha said last year's standoff between the two neighbours had been "worrisome" but said a war was not "imminent". However, Mehta told the meeting that the two sides were "pretty close" to war and there had been six opportunities when India could have gone to war. Bureau Report