Summit brings hope of Indo-Pakistan peace moves

Building on momentum toward better relations after a half-century of venom, the leaders of nuclear rivals Pakistan and India held much-anticipated face-to-face talks today.

Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf hosted the meeting with Indian premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The talks were seen as a milestone toward increasing confidence for a rapprochement, two years after their armies stood on the brink of war.

The meeting lasted 65 minutes in the Pakistan capital Islamabad. The two men shook hands and were joined during the talks by foreign affairs and national security aides.

Amid intense speculation that the leaders would broach the festering territorial dispute of Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani officials kept a tight lid on the outcome and refused to disclose any details.

Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha refused to ”speculate” on what he termed “sensitive issues.”

“Both leaders welcomed recent steps toward normalisation of relations between the two countries and expressed hope that the process will continue,” Sinha said. “Anyone who at this stage says any more will not be doing any service to either side.”

Masood Khan, spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, said that the fact the meeting was held was a “positive development” that would facilitate a process toward dialogue, something Pakistan has been keen to start to resolve the stand-off over Kashmir.

“The two leaders discussed the positive impact of the recent confidence-building measures and hopes that their momentum would be maintained,” Khan told a news briefing. ”I want to make clear that I have not revealed the content of their discussions, only the context in which they were held.”

Indian and Pakistani officials had worked behind the scenes for days to ensure that the meeting went ahead and billed it as a diplomatic courtesy call to dampen expectations of any major breakthrough, especially on Kashmir, flashpoint of two wars since the countries achieved independence from Britain in 1947.

Just before the meeting, Vajpayee laid a foundation stone at the Indian chancery and said the two countries have to keep on talking with each other.

“New questions have come up and new answers are being sought,” Vajpayee said. “The two sides have to realise each other’s problems and we have to find a way out together. Good relations with Pakistan are a big responsibility.”

Musharraf, who survived two assassination attempts last month, shook hands with Vajpayee before they sat down for their talks at the heavily guarded President House in Islamabad. The capital has been under a virtual lockdown, with some 10,000 police and commandos deployed in the streets during the three-day summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

The meeting came on the second day of the seven-nation summit, a multilateral venue on regional issues that has given the two heavyweights cover to hold the first direct talks between their leaders in two years. The other nations at the summit are Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives.