Indian Foreign Minister meets Musharraf

PAKISTAN: India's foreign minister met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday as the nuclear-armed rivals resumed peace efforts after a lull caused by political turmoil in Pakistan.

Pranab Mukherjee arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday to review a four-year-old peace process that has improved ties since the neighbours nearly went to war in 2002 but has failed to make progress on their main dispute, over the Kashmir region.

Top foreign ministry officials met on Tuesday to prepare for talks on Wednesday between Mukherjee and his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Officials from both sides said Tuesday's talks had made progress but no one expected a breakthrough on the dispute over the divided, Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir.

"New Delhi, though keen to pay lip service to the need for its resolution, would be looking for ways to evade the pressure and concentrate on matters of a peripheral nature," Pakistan's the Nation newspaper said in an editorial.

The neighbours launched peace efforts in 2004 after nearly going to war a fourth time over Islamist militant attacks in India linked to the nearly 20-year revolt against Indian rule in Kashmir which Pakistan supports, at least politically.

India has accused Pakistan of arming the insurgents in Kashmir and backing militants responsible for bomb attacks in Indian cities. Pakistan denies that.

Mukherjee's visit is the first high-level diplomatic contact India has had with leaders of the civilian government that took power in Pakistan after February polls. Analysts said he would be sounding out the new leaders.

Pakistani analysts hope the talks might set the stage for a visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

On Tuesday, the Indian minister met Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who leads the new coalition government.

He also held talks with another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whose party came second to Bhutto's in the election and is in an uneasy coalition with Bhutto's party. Musharraf, the architect of Pakistan's India policy since he seized power in a 1999 military coup, has made a range of proposals to end the Kashmir deadlock.

He offered to abandon demands for a plebiscite in Kashmir, as enshrined in U.N. resolutions, if India agreed to autonomy in its part of Kashmir. This, in effect, would have given up Pakistan's claim to the entire region.

Islamabad, Wednesday, Reuters