* Two leaders pledge improved ties, new meeting in Pakistan
* Rescue teams search for avalanche victims in Kashmir, key
area of dispute
* India objects to continued freedom for Islamist blamed for
2008 Mumbai attacks
(Adds meeting at Singh’s residence)
By Frank Jack Daniel
NEW DELHI, April 6 (Reuters) – Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood
side-by-side in New Delhi on Sunday at the highest-level meeting
on each other’s soil in seven years as the nuclear-armed foes
seek to normalise ties.
Relations have warmed since Pakistan promised its neighbour
most favoured nation trade status last year, although a $10
million bounty offered by Washington for a Pakistani Islamist
blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai has stirred old
grievances.
Without giving details, the two leaders said they discussed
a wide range of issues during a “fruitful” meeting before
sharing lunch. Singh said he hoped to make his first visit to
Pakistan at a convenient date.
“We would like to have better relations with India. We have
spoken on all topics that we could have spoken about and we are
hoping to meet on Pakistani soil very soon,” Zardari said as the
two men emerged from Singh’s residence.
On his first visit to India as part of the 40-member
delegation, Zardari’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, stood behind
the leaders at the briefing, possibly a sign of his growing role
in politics.
“Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal.
That’s our common desire,” Singh said. “We have a number of
issues and we are willing to find tactical, pragmatic solutions
to all those issues and that’s the message that president
Zardari and I would wish to convey.”
Zardari’s visit proceeded as rescue teams, backed by
helicopters and sniffer dogs, searched for 124 Pakistani
soldiers and 11 civilians engulfed by an avalanche on Saturday
near the 6,000-metre-high (18,500-foot) Siachen glacier in
Kashmir — known as the world’s highest battlefield.
India and Pakistan fought two wars over Siachen and hundreds
have died there, mostly from the inhospitable conditions.
India has yet to comment on the disaster.
ISLAMIST SHADOW
The continued freedom of Islamist Hafiz Saeed, suspected of
masterminding an attack by Pakistan-based gunmen on India’s
financial capital, Mumbai, in 2008 that killed 166 people,
caused some friction in the days before the meeting.
India is furious Pakistan has not detained Saeed, despite
handing over a dossier of evidence against him. Pakistan Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Friday that anyone with
concrete proof to prosecute Saeed should present it to the
courts.
And with Zardari and Singh both suffering major domestic
problems, prospects are low for fixing the complex stand-off
over disputed Kashmir, the trigger of two of three wars between
the two countries since independence from Britain in 1947.
Lasting Pakistan-India peace would go a long way to
smoothing a perilous transition in Afghanistan as most NATO
combat forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014.
India and Pakistan fought their most recent war in 1999,
shortly after both sides declared they possessed nuclear
weapons. Hundreds died on the disputed border in Kashmir before
Pakistani troops and militants were forced to withdraw.
Zardari is also due to visit the shrine in western India of
a revered Sufi Muslim saint seen as a symbol of harmony between
South Asia’s often competing religions.
Born in a village in what is now Pakistan, Singh has pushed
for peace during his two terms in office, but his efforts were
knocked off track by the 2008 ouster of former President Pervez
Musharraf, with whom he had built trust.
The three-day rampage by 10 Pakistani gunmen in Mumbai later
that year derailed the peace process – aimed at finding a
solution to Kashmir and other feuds along one of the world’s
most heavily armed borders. Talks only resumed a year ago.
Informal meetings, during international cricket matches, or
in this case before Zardari’s pilgrimage to the Sufi shrine,
have become the hallmark of Singh’s diplomacy.
In November, Singh met Gilani in the Maldives and promised
to open a new chapter in their troubled history.
Hopes are focused on resolving the conflict at the Siachen
glacier and a dispute over an oil-rich river estuary called Sir
Creek.
Musharraf, the last Pakistani head of state to visit India
in 2005, has said both issues were as good as fixed while he was
in office.
(Additional reporting by Anurag Kotoky; Editing by Ron Popeski)
