NEW DELHI, 9 November — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has ruled out talks with Pakistan for now saying conditions were not right, local media reported yesterday.
Vajpayee told reporters in Moscow that violence in Kashmir had increased in recent weeks, including in areas on the border with Pakistan, and innocent people were being targeted.
"This is not a conducive atmosphere for talks, and until a proper climate can be created there can be no talks," the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying before he left Moscow for Washington where he will hold talks with President George W. Bush.
Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan both back the US-led war on terrorism and they are under pressure from the international community to contain tension over Kashmir while the war against the Taleban rulers of neighboring Afghanistan is on.
Fresh violence erupted in Kashmir yesterday when activists threw a grenade in a crowded street in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, killing a woman and wounding five people, including a one-year-old baby.
Violence in Kashmir has increased by more than 50 percent this year, while the security forces have shot dead more than 1,600 activists, police said yesterday.
They said there had been a 55 percent increase in the violence in the state from January to October this year compared to the same period last year. "Foreign activist dominated outfits executed 3,882 incidents of violence so far this year as against 2,503 reported during the corresponding period of last year," a police spokesman said.
India accuses Pakistan of supporting the separatists. India has demanded that Pakistan stop backing the separatists but Pakistan says it only offers them moral support. India has also sought to widen the global war on terrorism to include the rebels in Kashmir. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is also due in the United States this week for the UN General Assembly session and a meeting with Bush in New York. Vajpayee had earlier dismissed speculation about meeting Musharraf on the margins of the UN session, saying it was not necessary to meet him there. A series of leaders including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Secretary of State of Colin Powell have visited the subcontinent recently to urge restraint between India and Pakistan.
Vajpayee and Musharraf held a summit in the north Indian city of Agra in July but their talks ended in stalemate.
"The atmosphere was not good there. No proper result came out," Press Trust of India quoted Vajpayee as saying at the end of his trip to old Cold Wart ally Russia.
The Indian Express newspaper said he Bush administration was likely to renew its plea to India to hold talks with Pakistan.
"There is a large section of public opinion in India which favors resumption of talks between India and Pakistan," the newspaper said in an editorial. But "this does not in any way mean they (the public) will condone cross-border terrorism".
The Asian Age said Vajpayee’s team planned to show the Bush administration evidence linking the militants US-led forces are attacking in Afghanistan with those India is battling in Kashmir. Other sources have indicated that Vajpayee is carrying "convincing evidence of interlinks between the various jihadi groups operating in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Pakistan."
"The objective," sources said, is to "sell to the US the idea that even if Americans intend indulging in the Kashmir issue, to begin with they should recognize these links and ensure a complete end to any violence in Kashmir." A senior official said, "Pakistan has been using Kashmir as a trump card for any guarantee of peace that the US has sought from it in the region, and this is what Vajpayee will try to underplay, while reaffirming our commitment to dealing with the Kashmir issue on a one-to-one basis."
