Indo-Pak summit: Tough talk over Kashmir dispute
Indo-Pak summit: Tough talk over Kashmir dispute
NEW DELHI (Agencies): Tough talk over the disputed Kashmir province escalated and security was tightened on Friday, the eve of a landmark summit between India and Pakistan.
Security was stepped up in the Indian capital before Saturday's arrival of Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, with authorities claiming threats by Islamic extremists to disrupt the three-day summit.
The Pakistan leader was to spend the day in New Delhi for official ceremonies, private meetings and a state banquet.
One of those meetings will be with India's home minister, L.K. Advani, who will challenge Musharraf on cross-border terrorism and infiltration of Islamic guerrillas from Pakistan into the northern Indian Jammu-Kashmir state.
The formal summit between Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee begins on Sunday morning in Agra, the city southeast of New Delhi that is home to the Taj Mahal.
The summit marks the first talks between the nuclear rivals since 1999, when a dialog to improve relations broke off after Pakistan launched an attack on Indian-held Kashmir.
Musharraf insisted he could not remain leader of the country if he accepted India's continued control of the disputed Himalayan territory.
But Vajpayee said Kashmir would always remain a core part of the country and he rejected any suggestion of third-party mediation.
Although India wants the summit to address a raft of issues ranging from trade to nuclear weapons, Pakistan insists that Kashmir must top the agenda.
They have fought two wars over the territory since Muslim Pakistan was carved out of Hindu-dominated India after independence from Britain in 1947, and over 30,000 people have died in a separatist rebellion in Kashmir which started over a decade ago.
Both sides also menaced each other with nuclear weapons tests in 1999, a development that shocked the West and brought economic sanctions from the United States, Japan and other nations.
Musharraf told the Dubai-based Gulf News that no Pakistani leader could accept continued Indian control over Kashmir and expect to stay in power.
"Who in Pakistan could ever accept this?" he said.
Vajpayee, however, insisted India's position on Kashmir stems from "the core principle of our nationhood", the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted him as saying.
Despite the pre-summit posturing, both leaders also said they were going into the meeting with an open mind and a desire to heal relations between the two countries.
Hype
"The summit has created such hype that the entire world is watching us," Pakistan's The News quoted Musharraf as saying. "We must meet with an open mind, remove the main irritant."
"We have to move ahead to the future," Vajpayee said. I hope President Musharraf will bring to the summit meeting a desire to bury the conflicts of the past and to build a new relationship."
In Kashmir, much of the state was paralysed on Friday by a one-day strike called by the main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, to commemorate a 1931 crackdown on Muslims in the state by its princely Sikh ruler.
Two separatist leaders said they had been briefly put under house arrest to prevent them from leading a protest march or holding a news conference.
Violence also continued. Police said three Indian soldiers and two separatist rebels were killed in a clash late on Thursday at Gurez, near the Pakistan border.
Pakistan controls a third of Kashmir and India frequently accuses Islamabad of arming many of the dozen or so militant groups fighting New Delhi's rule in its part.
Pakistan, which want a 1948 United Nations resolution for a plebiscite on the future of the state to be implemented, denies the charges, saying it provides only moral support.
Musharraf said past agreements between India and Pakistan, namely the Simla Agreement in 1972 and the Lahore Declaration of 1999, failed because Kashmir was not the sole issue.
"Until now, Kashmir has always been sidelined by India," Musharraf said in an interview with PTI on Friday. "I have never at all said that I will be flexible on the issue to be discussed, which is Kashmir. I have said Kashmir is the only issue."
Musharraf, who recently declared himself president, is being welcomed only begrudgingly in the world's largest democracy. The military hawk has fought in two wars against India and is widely believed to be the instigator of the 11-week incursion into Indian-held Kashmir in 1999. He then seized power in a coup.
On Friday, more than 200 people marched toward Parliament wearing saffron robes, representing Hinduism. They burned a 10- foot effigy of Musharraf and declared the talks would fail because Pakistan aids infiltration of Islamic militants into Kashmir.