* 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 foreign ministry comment)
By Frank Jack Daniel
NEW DELHI, April 8 (Reuters) – Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood together
in New Delhi on Sunday, adding weight to peace efforts by the
nuclear-armed foes with the first visit by a Pakistani head of
state to India in seven years.
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.
The leaders discussed Kashmir, theatre of two of three wars
between India and Pakistan, as well as terrorism and trade
during a 40-minute meeting on their own before sharing lunch,
India’s Foreign Secretary Rajan Mathai told reporters.
“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 told a
briefing as they emerged from Singh’s residence.
Singh said he hoped to make his first visit to Pakistan at a
convenient date.
“Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal.
That’s our common desire,” he 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 then headed to the shrine in western India of a
revered Sufi Muslim saint seen as a symbol of harmony between
South Asia’s often competing religions.
On his first visit to India as part of the 40-member
delegation, Zardari’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, stood behind
the leaders, in a sign of his growing role in politics.
Mathai said Singh offered Zardari India’s help in finding
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.
Zardari thanked Singh but did not immediately respond to the
offer to help rescue teams, backed by helicopters and sniffer
dogs combing an area one-km (half a mile) wide with snow up to
80 feet (25 metres) deep. Hundreds have died at Siachen over the
years, mainly from the inhospitable conditions.
A foreign ministry source said the timing of any visit by
Singh to Pakistan will depend on issues including a conflict
over the oil-rich Sir Creek river estuary, one of their longest
running disputes.
MUMBAI ATTACK
Singh told Zardari it was imperative to bring to justice the
perpetrators of a 2008 attack on India’s financial capital,
Mumbai – a three-day gun and bomb rampage by 10 Pakistani
militants that left 166 dead and derailed the peace process.
Talks only resumed last year.
The Indian prime minister raised the continued freedom of
Hafiz Saeed, the Islamist suspected of masterminding the attack.
Saeed will be discussed again at a forthcoming meeting between
home ministry officials, Mathai said.
India is furious Pakistan has not detained Saeed, despite
handing over 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.
Relaxed visa rules will be signed at the same meeting of
officials. Pakistan is expected to formally designate India as a
most-favoured-nation later this year.
With Zardari and Singh both suffering major domestic
problems, prospects are low for fixing the Kashmir stand-off.
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 defacto border in Kashmir before
Pakistani troops and militants were forced to withdraw.
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, and the Mumbai raids.
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 history. Hopes are focused on
boosting trade and tourism, and resolving the conflict at the
Siachen glacier and Sir Creek in the west.
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)
