Former Indian PM Vajpayee dies after prolonged illness

ISLAMABAD, 21 September 2003 — Pakistan said yesterday it had formally invited Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to a regional summit in Islamabad in January.

The invitation was handed over to the Indian deputy ambassador in Islamabad on behalf of Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, the Foreign Office said.

“The letter of invitation from the prime minister was delivered by Director General (South Asia) to the Indian deputy high commissioner at the Foreign Office today,” the office said. A summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be held in the Pakistani capital on Jan. 4-6.

The summit was originally planned for January this year, but was postponed after India declined to attend because of tension with Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region.

The invitation came after Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri dropped a plan to visit New Delhi to deliver an invitation after India said his journey was not necessary.

India has indicated that Vajpayee will attend the summit but Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said recently the meeting would not necessarily provide a forum for bilateral talks between Pakistan and India.

The nuclear-armed South Asian rivals have fought two of their three wars since independence over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and came close to a fourth in 2002.

Relations have thawed slightly since Vajpayee issued a call for talks in April, but attacks by separatist rebels in Indian-administered Kashmir, who India says are backed by Pakistan, have undermined chances of peace talks.

Pakistan denies the accusation that it is stoking the 14-year rebellion in Indian Kashmir, saying it only provides political, moral and diplomatic support to what it calls a legitimate Kashmiri freedom movement.

The other members of the SAARC are Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Both India and Pakistan have pledged to move toward long-suspended dialogue but no dates have been set. The last formal talks were held in July 2001 at Agra in India.

Ambassadorial and transport links were severed by India after it blamed Pakistani-based militants for a fatal gun attack on its Parliament. Nine people and the five gunmen were killed in the December 2001 attack.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, troops killed six suspected militants in a gunbattle yesterday. The battle in the Shopian area south of Kashmir’s biggest city Srinagar began after troops combing the area challenged a group of rebels, a police spokesman said. Three soldiers were also injured in the incident.

Police said the six belonged to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group. There was no independent confirmation of that.

NEW DELHI, 24 January 2004 — Kashmiri separatists paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee here yesterday evening, the first ever meeting between an Indian premier and separatists.

The meeting between five moderate members of Kashmir’s main separatist group the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and Vajpayee at his residence here lasted around 40 minutes, reporters at the scene said.

The meeting follows substantive talks on Thursday between the Hurriyat moderates and Vajpayee’s deputy, Lal Krishna Advani.

Omar Farooq, one of the five separatist leaders, overnight told the Press Trust of India that the delegation would convey the Hurriyat’s “complete support” to Vajpayee’s efforts to improve ties with Pakistan.

“We are going to tell Vajpayee that the beginning he has made in Islamabad, the entire leadership in Kashmir, the people in Kashmir are with the process,” he said.

“We intend to see that this dialogue process is taken forward so that even at the India-Pakistan level things will move forward because that does have a direct impact on the situation in the state,” he said.

During the icebreaking talks Thursday, Advani and the separatists agreed that violence from all sides must end and said the second round of negotiations will be held in March.

Advani also said there would be a “rapid review” of the cases of political prisoners.

After Thursday’s talks, Farooq said India may halt security operations in Kashmir by early next month, coinciding with the festival of Eid Al-Adha.

That meeting marked the first time the separatists and the government had held such high-level talks and came only two weeks after nuclear rivals India and Pakistan agreed to resume discussions next month on a host of disputes, including Kashmir, the trigger of two of their three wars.

Kashmir analyst Tahir Mohiudin said the talks had “begun on a satisfactory note”.

“For the first time India has agreed to hold step-by-step talks to resolve the dispute of Kashmir,” he said, adding that Advani’s assurance on reviewing cases of detainees “was a big concession”.

However, militants yesterday rejected calls for an end to violence.

“We will not silence our guns against Indian troops and their paid agents,” Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen’s field commander Gen. Mohammed Umar said in a statement circulated among local newspaper offices.

Jamiat is one of a dozen rebel groups fighting Indian troops in Kashmir. It wants to merge Kashmir with neighboring Pakistan, which along with India holds the region in parts, though both claim it in full.

Umar said the group would continue fighting Indian troops “until we achieve our goal of forcing India out of Kashmir.”

Before the talks Jamiat had threatened the moderates with a “bad end” if they “bowed” before India.

“It (Thursday’s meeting) has been a total flop show,” said Syed Ali Geelani, head of the Hurriyat’s hard-line faction. “Nothing has emerged out of these talks,” he told AFP.

Geelani, who has the backing of militants in the region, where Indian officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed in the revolt, also defended the violence by Kashmiri rebels.

Meanwhile, suspected militants killed four people, including a pro-India political worker while Indian troops shot dead a militant, police said yesterday.

Maqbool Jan, a worker of pro-India political group Awami League, was shot dead by suspected militants in the town of Bandipora in north Kashmir yesterday, a police spokesman said.

Jan was close to Usman Majeed, a militant-turned-lawmaker from the area.

The Awami League was formed in 1995 by former militants, who changed sides and worked with Indian troops to counter Kashmir insurgency.

They have been on the hit list of militants fighting to secede Kashmir from India and join it with neighboring Pakistan or remain independent.

Suspected militants overnight shot dead a retired police inspector in the village of Kawachak in northern Baramulla district, of which Bandipora is an important town.

Police said the body of a Muslim youth was recovered in the southern district of Pulwama yesterday. “The body had slit marks on the throat,” a police spokesman said, and put the blame on rebels for the killing.

Another Muslim was also killed by suspected militants in the same district, police said, adding a rebel was shot dead by security forces during a gunfight in Poonch district, further south.