We Want Peace, Musharraf Tells U.S.

June 6, 2002

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) – Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has assured a top U.S. envoy he is seeking a peaceful resolution to the dispute with India, stressing he does not want war.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage relayed the Pakistani leader's message after emerging from a meeting with Musharraf in Islamabad Thursday.

"President Musharraf has made it very clear that he is searching for peace and he won't be the one to initiate a war," Armitage told reporters. "I will be hopefully getting the same type of assurances tomorrow in Delhi," he added.

The meeting came as Washington ramps up diplomatic efforts to get South Asia's two nuclear powers to resolve the crisis over Kashmir through dialogue.

India's Deputy Foreign Minister, Omar Abdullah, told CNN that his nation, too, is doing everything it can to avoid a military confrontation with Pakistan.

"If we were looking for an out-and-out military conflict, we would have exercised it immediately after the attack on our parliament in December," he said from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

"We continue to explore all the diplomatic options available for us bilaterally as well as to work with the international community."

But Abdullah said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government is under tremendous pressure from the Indian public for "a strong military response."

Armitage is due later to travel on to New Delhi for meetings with the Indian leadership.

He will be followed by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who is expected to spell out bluntly to both sides the risks entailed of a war on the subcontinent. (Full story)

On Wednesday U.S. President George W. Bush telephoned Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, "urging them to take steps that will ease tensions ... and reduce the risk of war" a spokesman said.

The president stressed to both leaders "the need to choose the path of diplomacy," Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary, told reporters.

U.S. officials say they want to see Musharraf do more to stop incursions by militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir and would like to see India respond by taking steps to reduce tensions.

Both the United States and Britain upped travel advisories Thursday, urging their citizens to leave both India and Pakistan at the earliest opportunity. Previous warnings had urged nationals to "consider leaving."

Trading blame

Between them India and Pakistan have massed about a million troops along their border and the Kashmiri Line of Control, which divides the disputed region between them.

India accuses Pakistan of funding, arming and training Islamic militant groups it blames for a series of attacks in Indian administered Kashmir and a deadly attack on the Indian parliament last December.

Pakistan has denied the Indian charges saying it only gives moral support to groups waging what it calls a "liberation struggle" for the people of Kashmir.(A tense few weeks)

On Wednesday Vajpayee raised the possibility of joint patrols by Indian and Pakistani forces along the Line of Control as way of preventing militant incursions into Indian territory.

The proposal was rebuffed by Pakistani officials who described the suggestion as "nothing new" and "unlikely to work," given the tense state of relations.

Pakistan maintains there is no infiltration across the Line of Control and has called for independent observers, such as United Nations monitors, to be allowed to verify this.

Vajpayee later elaborated on his comments, saying there were "many proposals for verification, of which joint patrolling is one."

Stand-off

Both the Indian and Pakistani leaders were in Kazakhstan earlier this week for a regional security summit.

But despite both men being in the same room -- often sitting at the same table even -- diplomatic efforts headed by China and Russia to get them talking came to nothing.

The tense stand-off has raised international fears of a possible nuclear war developing from the dispute over the Himalayan region, which already has sparked two wars between Pakistan and India.

In Kashmir itself, exchanges of fire continued Thursday with reports of heavy shelling across the Line or Control near Gurez about 100 kilometers north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Overnight two Indian soldiers were killed when suspected Islamic militants staged an ambush in southern Kashmir, Indian military sources said.

The sources told CNN the soldiers were members of the 44 Rashtrya Rifles, a special counter-insurgency unit.

Meanwhile officials have also reported another attack by suspected militants on a police patrol in Srinagar district Wednesday night. No one was wounded in the attack.