INDIA: The leaders of India and Pakistan yesterday said they had met each other informally on the sidelines of a regional summit in Nepal, but held no substantive talks to lessen tension between the two nuclear rivals who had amassed their armies along their borders.
"Tension may not have been eased, but it has not worsened," the Pakistan President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, said after the closing of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC)) summit in Kathmandu of his informal encounters with the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Diplomats said Gen Musharraf went to Mr Vajpayee's room at the convention centre after the summit closed where they met for no more than five minutes in an effort to try and defuse the "war-alert status" of their armies along their 1,100 mile border following last month's suicide attack on India's parliament for which Delhi blames Islamabad.
"We were together so many times. It was not a bilateral meeting nor were there any negotiations," Gen Musharraf said, leading to widespread speculation among the delegations of the two countries as to what that exactly meant.
"I am looking forward to formalising the interactions and reducing the tensions between the two countries," Gen Musharraf added as the two sides exchanged mortar fire yet again along their northern borders.
"There were exchanges of courtesies, nothing more," Mr Vajpayee said of the meeting on returning home later in the evening .
There is little possibility of any formal meeting with Pakistan, he added.
Mr Vajpayee ruled out negotiations with Gen Musharraf at the summit, saying Pakistan first needed to crack down harder on anti-Indian Islamic militants waging war in northern Jammu and Kashmir state, which is divided between the neighbours and claimed by both.
Gen Musharraf said the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, and his Pakistan counterpart, Mr Abdul Sattar, also held discussions on Saturday night to try and reduce tension. India, however, denied that this meeting took place in the perennial parry and thrust, underscored by secrecy, that pervade India-Pakistan relations.
Gen Musharraf made a dramatic gesture towards Mr Vajpayee at the start of the summit on Saturday, offering to negotiate peace and, breaking with protocol, even walked across the stage to shake his hand.
Asked about the handshake, Mr Vajpayee said: "My hand is still intact."
Addressing SAARC after Gen Musharraf's handshake, Mr Vajpayee said Pakistan's president must follow his gesture by not permitting terrorists to perpetrate mindless violence in India.
He added that whenever India had extended a hand of friendship towards Pakistan, it had always been "rewarded" by heightened violence in Kashmir, a hijacking, and the December 13th assault on its parliament.
India blames two Pakistan-based separatist groups for the attack on parliament and has repeatedly asked Islamabad to end support for Muslim guerrillas fighting a war against Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989 that has claimed over 35,000 lives.
"We will give a reasonable time to Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups operating from its soil against India and to deport 20 militants we have officially demanded," the junior foreign minister, Mr Omar Farooq, said in Delhi.
If it does not respond adequately, then the next diplomatic measure will be considered, he said, adding that war is not a " first option" but could not be ruled out.
Meanwhile, India shot down an unmanned Pakistani spy drone that had intruded into Indian airspace in Kashmir yesterday, highly-placed army sources said.
The spy plane entered Indian airspace at roughly 3.45 p.m. (10.15 Irish time) and flew eight kilometers into the southern Kashmiri border district of Poonch where it circled over army installations, the sources said.
They said the plane was eventually shot down by an army helicopter and crashed on the Pakistani side of the border.
Pakistan's military denied one of its spy planes had been destroyed and said the Indian military was trying to cover up the loss of one of its own drones.