ISLAMABAD, 28 December 2003 — President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee are likely to shake hands for the first time in nearly two years at a South Asian summit next week, a senior official said yesterday.
The two leaders, who have not met since January 2002 amid bitter wrangling over militancy in the disputed territory of Kashmir, are due to come face-to-face at a banquet on Jan. 4. “All seven heads of state and government, including our prime minister as well, will have a joint call on the president before the banquet,” Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar told a news briefing ahead of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit.
Khokhar said Pakistan will provide tight security during the three-day summit following two assassination attempts on Musharraf this month.
“We are giving top priority and the fullest attention to security. There will be tight and stringent security arrangements during the entire summit period,” Khokhar said.
“There is absolutely no change in plan, all (delegates) have confirmed their presence in Islamabad,” he said.
Musharraf stunned Vajpayee by crossing the podium to shake hands with the Indian leader at the last SAARC summit in Katmandu, in January 2002.
Khokhar said Pakistan had received no request from India for a bilateral meeting with Musharraf but there were chances that the two leaders would meet on the sidelines of the summit. “One should always remain optimistic.”
Since the handshake in Nepal, which followed a failed summit between the rival nuclear neighbors in the Indian city of Agra in July 2001, the two leaders have appeared at several international forums but avoided even eye contact with each other.
Instead they have used the forums as platforms to snipe away at each other with Musharraf raising the festering dispute over Kashmir and Vajpayee accusing Pakistan of sponsoring “cross-border terrorism” in the insurgency-torn Indian zone of the Himalayan state.
Bilateral relations began to improve after Vajpayee offered of a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan in April. The two countries have since restored full diplomatic ties, restarted bus links and also agreed to resume air and rail services next month.
