India dismisses Pakistani gesture

India's prime minister snubbed Pakistan's president and shrugged off his plea for dialogue yesterday, apparently ending all possibilities of talks between the nuclear-armed nations whose armies are on high alert.

After Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf called for dialogue with his Indian counterpart, he offered an onstage handshake to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Indian leader politely accepted, with a faint smile, but then snubbed Musharraf when the on-stage meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was over.

"I extend a hand of genuine and sincere friendship to Prime Minister Vajpayee," Musharraf said. "Let us together commence a journey of peace, harmony and progress in South Asia."

Vajpayee responded in a strongly worded speech by saying the gesture should be followed by an end to the support of terrorism. When the opening ceremonies of the summit ended, Vajpayee then walked by the waiting general without looking at him.

Along their 1,800km border, India's "forces remain on alert," said Indian External Affairs Minster Jaswant Singh, after the meeting.

Vajpayee also skipped an hourlong informal meeting for the seven South Asian leaders -- from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives -- later in the afternoon.

In his speech, Vajpayee said his own "offers of friendship" to Pakistan in the past were answered by aggression in the disputed province of Kashmir, the hijacking of an Indian airliner and last month's attack on India's parliament.

India has accused Pakistan's spy agency of sponsoring the Dec. 13 parliament strike by two Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups. The Islamabad government and the two groups deny this.

"I am glad that General Musharraf extended a hand of friendship to me," Vajpayee said. "I have shaken his hand in your presence.

"Now, President Musharraf must follow the gesture by not permitting any activity in Pakistan or any territory in its control today which enables terrorists to perpetuate mindless violence in India," Vajpayee said.

Musharraf declared that Pakistan "remains ready to engage in sustained dialogue with India at all times and all levels."

Vajpayee reacted by mentioning his own trip to Lahore, Pakistan in 1999 "with a hand of friendship."

"We were rewarded by aggression in Kargil," he said, referring to the 11-week border conflict along a cease-fire line that divides the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Vajpayee has always accused Musharraf, who was head of Pakistan's armed forces then, of planning the frontier infiltration at the town of Kargil before staging a military coup that brought the general to power.

After Musharraf was invited to a summit in Agra last July, Vajpayee said, "We were rewarded with terrorist attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and last month the parliament of India."

Forty people were killed in the Oct. 1 suicide attack at the State Assembly building in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the territory.