NEPAL/PAKISTAN: PAKISTAN PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF SHAKES HANDS WITH INDIAN PRIME MINISTER VAJPAYYE AT SAARC SUMMIT AS BORDER TENSIONS CONTINUES

Record ID: 639515

  • Title: NEPAL/PAKISTAN: PAKISTAN PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF SHAKES HANDS WITH INDIAN PRIME MINISTER VAJPAYYE AT SAARC SUMMIT AS BORDER TENSIONS CONTINUES
  • Date: 5th January 2002
  • Summary: (W3) KATHMANDU, NEPAL (JANUARY 5, 2002 ) (REUTERS) SCU MUSHARRAF SEATED SLV VAJPAYEE RETURNING TO HIS SEAT WIDE VIEW OF THE SUMMIT (W4) ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (JANUARY 5, 2002) (REUTERS) WIDE VIEW ISLAMABAD INTERNATIONAL DEPARTURES TERMINAL AT ISLAMABAD AIRPORT SCU INTERNATIONAL DEPARTURES SIGN AT AIRPORT SLV INDIAN DEPUTY HIGH COMMISSIONER TO PAKISTAN, SUDHIR VYAS,
  • Embargoed: 20th January 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KATHMANDU, NEPAL / ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
  • City:
  • Country: Pakistan Nepal
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA49C7AERW965ZOSYK21AS27GRI
  • Story Text: In a dramatic gesture, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf shook the hand of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a SAARC summit in Kathmandu, easing fears of war between the two countries as their armies massed along the border.
    However back in Pakistan the Indian Deputy High Commissioner bid farewell to relatives as he returned home, leaving behind him the still fragile relations between nuclear capable rivals India and Pakistan.
    Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf concluded a speech to a South Asia summit in Nepal on Saturday (January 5) by announcing he wanted "to extend a hand of genuine, sincere friendship to Prime Minister Vajpayee".
    He then strode around the podium to face Vajpayee, sitting among a row of government leaders, and held out his hand to loud applause.
    With a look almost of wry amusement, Vajpayee half rose to his feet and shook Musharraf's hand.
    "I have shaken his hand in your presence," Vajpayee told the summit.
    "Now President Musharraf must follow this gesture by not permitting any activity in Pakistan or any territory in its control today which enables terrorists to perpetrate mindless violence in India."
    But as international pressure mounted for talks to defuse the crisis between the nuclear-armed rivals, Vajpayee played down prospects for dialogue by saying India had been betrayed by such meetings in the past.
    His visit to the Pakistan city of Lahore in 1999 was followed, he said, by the Kargil conflict, an outbreak of fighting in northern Kashmir which nearly brought India and Pakistan to their fourth war.
    India accused Musharraf, a general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, of masterminding the Kargil conflict.
    Vajpayee then invited Musharraf for talks in the Indian city of Agra last July.
    Those talks ended in failure, though Musharraf was seen as having won the media battle, a victory he may well repeat at the SAARC summit in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.
    "I went to Lahore with a hand of friendship. We were rewarded with aggression in Kargil, and the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft from Kathmandu," Vajpayee said.
    "I invited President Musharraf to Agra. We were rewarded with a terrorist attack on the Jammu and Kashmir assembly, and last month on the parliament of India," he said.
    The attack on the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly on October 1 last year killed 38 people.
    Pakistan has rounded up hundreds of militants over the last several days and arrested the leaders of two Kashmiri separatist groups -- the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
    Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh told the South Asia summit India welcomed the crackdown but more steps were needed to create a climate conducive to peace talks.
    Vajpayee said in his own speech to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that India needed to see more action from Pakistan in curbing Pakistan-based separatists it blames for fomenting a revolt against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state.
    Islamabad insists the crackdown is for internal security reasons and not at India's behest. Musharraf has said he has wanted to arrest extremists for some time but was deterred by concerns of a violent backlash.
    The two countries' armies frequently trade fire across the Line of Control, the ceasefire line dividing disputed Kashmir.
    But the military build-up along borders outside Kashmir has raised concern about a full-scale confrontation rather than limited conflict in the disputed region, where difficult Himalayan terrain makes all-out war difficult.
    India's Deputy High Commissioner, Sudhir Vyas, left Islamabad on Saturday, withdrawn by his government as part of the diplomatic and military row with Pakistan.
    The withdrawal of Vyas came as both India and Pakistan reduced the levels of their Commission staff in each other's countries.
    India earlier withdrew its High Commissioner to Islamabad after the December 13 attack on its parliament, blamed by India on Pakistan-based militant groups.
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