CUBA: Leaders of India and Pakistan hold their first meeting in almost a year

The leaders of India and Pakistan met in Havana, Cuba on Saturday (September 16) to try and ease tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours after a year of recriminations over terror attacks and the disputed Kashmir border region. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who last met a year ago at the United Nations, met on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit. Their talks follow a frosty summer of accusations and canceled meetings over the July 11 train bombings that killed 186 people in Mumbai, India. Singh this week lamented "a problem of trust deficit between our two countries" and U.S. and Indian analysts predict few breakthroughs. The India-Pakistan peace process was launched in 2004 after the rivals came to the brink of a fourth war. A key measure of progress would be whether the two leaders agree to revive formal negotiations between their diplomats, called off by New Delhi after the Mumbai blast, which India blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Indian officials said Singh would be looking for some concrete assurances from Musharraf to crack down on groups like Lashkar. Analysts said Musharraf, who also faces U.S. and Afghan pressure to do more to rein in Islamic militants on Pakistan's other big border, would be hard-pressed to follow earlier initiatives on Kashmir that India did not respond to.

ITN Source | September 17, 2006

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