Vajpayee to meet Putin, Zemin in Kazakhstan

NEW DELHI: Amid heightened Indo-Pak tensions, Prime Minsiter Atal Bihari Vajpayee is expected to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Kazakhstan where a key security conference will be held on June 4.
Putin, who has offered to help in defusing the stand-off between New Delhi and Islamabad, is also expected to separately meet Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who too would be attending the 16-nation first summit of Conference on Interaction and Confidence Build Measures in Asia (CICA).
"There is no question of Vajpayee meeting Musharraf. There is no possibility of a Tashkent II," special secretary in the external affairs ministry R M Abhyankar said while briefing reporters here on Vajpayee''s four-day visit to Almaty from June 2.
It may be recalled that after the 1965 Indo-Pak conflict then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had met Pakistan military ruler Ayub Khan in Tashkent.
On a meeting between Vajpayee and Putin, he said "Putin will be in Almaty. There is a desire on our part and as well as Putin''s part to meet". Efforts were also on to schedule a meeting betweeen the Prime Minister and Zemin, which will be the first between the two leaders, he said.
Asked as to what would be India''s response to any dramatic gesture on Musharraf''s part like the handshake with Vajpayee in Kathmandu during the January Saarc summit, Abhayankar said "We have to wait and see. It is too hypothetical".
Abhyankar also termed as "hypothetical" another question on whether India would accept an offer by Pakistani to allow the Prime Minister''s aircraft to overfly its air space to go to Kazakhstan.
Vajpayee would take seven-and-a-half hours to reach Almaty, more than double the normal flight time taken as his special aircraft would not overfly Pakistan.
Vajpayee, who is visiting Almaty at the invitation of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, would hold wide-ranging talks with the Kazakh leader on June 3 and also rename a road there after Mahatma Gandhi. India and Kazakhstan are expected to sign bilateral agreements to combat terrorism and promote tourism.
On why Vajpayee was staying on for a day more in Almaty changing his earlier schedule to return home on June 4, Abhayankar said that this had been done to allow the Prime Minsiter to have more bilateral interactions with leaders attending CICA.
India will convey its deep concerns over Pakistan-backed cross border terrorism to the summit leaders. "India''s concerns will find a reflection in some form or the other," Abhayankar said.
The CICA Summit is expected to adopt a declaration on Eliminating Terrorism and Promoting Dialogue among Civilisations. Its first meeting in November had to be postponed because of US-led military action in Afghanistan.
Besides India, Russia, China and Pakistan, CICA members include Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey and Central Asian states. The US, Japan and certain other countries enjoy observer status.