NEW DELHI/KATMANDU, 7 January — India said its troops shot at an unmanned Pakistani spy plane in the disputed Kashmir region yesterday as leaders of the nuclear rivals flew home from a regional summit in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu no closer to easing fears of war.
Despite another handshake and exchanging pleasantries, the leaders of India and Pakistan left the South Asian summit with no easing of tensions.
As they went their separate ways, Indian and Pakistani forces traded mortar fire on their tense border, further dashing hopes for a diplomatic solution. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Katmandu ended as it began, with a handshake between Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
The two leaders, however, held their first direct talks in more than six months yesterday when South Asian leaders organized an impromptu summit between the rivals to help defuse a three-week military and diplomatic standoff.
Musharraf and Vajpayee held a "bilateral chat" of at least 10 to 15 minutes at the convention center where the seven-nation summit had just ended, Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga said.
Chandrika said she was in the room with the two leaders as they waited for their escorts to leave and "jokingly said this is the right time for a bilateral summit. Then they started talking". Chandrika said the two countries’ foreign ministers joined their leaders in the room and that they were "speaking very animatedly" when she left them alone 10 to 15 minutes later.
But both leaders downplayed the meeting, saying no negotiations took place. "There were exchanges of courtesies, nothing more," Vajpayee told reporters adding that "nothing significant was discussed," when they shook hands at the end of the summit. Musharraf — who stole the show on Saturday when he walked over to Vajpayee at the opening session of the summit and shook his hand — was hopeful that formal talks would take place, though no time has been set.
"They (tensions) may not have been eased, but they haven’t worsened," Musharraf told a news conference in Katmandu after the end of the summit. "We had an informal interaction and we look forward to formalizing the interaction in the future," he said.
An Indian Army spokesman said the Pakistani plane was fired on in Indian airspace, but he could not say if it was hit or returned to Pakistan.
The Press Trust of India said it was destroyed and the wreckage fell on Pakistan’s side of Kashmir’s cease-fire line. Pakistan immediately denied losing a plane, instead saying an Indian spy plane had crashed in Indian Kashmir.
After Vajpayee returned to New Delhi, he held talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the two leaders signed a joint declaration condemning all those who support and finance terrorism.
Speaking to reporters, Blair, who will go to Islamabad today, said he believed New Delhi would resume a dialogue with Islamabad once the perceived threat of attack from militant groups operating from Pakistan had been eradicated.
The joint declaration specifically equated the attacks on the Indian parliament and the legislature in Indian Kashmir with the Sept. 11 terrorist atrocities in the United States. "We condemn all those who support terrorism: those that finance, train or provide support for terrorists share their guilt," Blair said.
