India's Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, yesterday ruled out holding talks with Pakistan's President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, at the 16-nation Asian conference which opens in Kazakhstan tomorrow.
"I have no such plans [to talk to Gen Musharraf]," Mr Vajpayee said in New Delhi before leaving for his four-day visit to the Kazak capital, Almaty. "If we see results on the ground of Gen Musharraf's statements [to end cross-border terrorism], we shall certainly give it our serious consideration," he said.
Indian officials said Mr Vajpayee was expected to meet the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, at the Almaty summit, which is due to adopt a declaration condemning terrorism, the principal source of tension between the South Asian nuclear rivals.
India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring "cross-border" terrorism in Kashmir state and fuelling the continuing 13-year-old insurgency that has claimed over 35,000 lives. Both countries deployed over one million soldiers along the common 2,000-mile-long border last December following a suicide attack on India's parliament that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad.
Tension spiralled last month after another militant strike - for which India again accused Pakistan - on an army garrison near Jammu in which 31 people, mostly soldiers' family members, were killed. Pakistan denies India's allegations, but in a nationwide televised address last week, Gen Musharraf stated that Pakistan would not allow itself to be used as a launching pad for terrorists.
He also allayed international concerns over a nuclear war with India at the weekend, declaring that neither side was "irresponsible" enough to go to the limit of using weapons of mass destruction.
Gen Musharraf also called for a no-war pact with India. His remarks marked a significant shift from his April interview to Ger- many's Der Spiegel magazine in which he stated that "if the pressure on Pakistan becomes too great then as a last resort, the [use of] the atom bomb [against India] is also possible."
Last week, Pakistan's envoy to the UN in New York declared that "India should not have the licence to kill with conventional weapons while Pakistan's hands are tied regarding other means to defend itself".
Pakistan, the ambassador, Mr Munir Akram added, had to rely on the nuclear means it possessed to deter Indian aggression.
Meanwhile, war clouds over South Asia have led to many countries shifting their non-essential diplomatic staff and diplomats' families out of New Delhi.Ireland became the latest country yesterday to advise its nationals to consider leaving India and Pakistan.
In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the situation in the region was of "serious concern", and also advised against all travel there.
(Additional reporting: AFP)