Pakistan Accepts India's Overtures
Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday formally accepted India's offer to hold peace talks over the disputed Kashmir region and other issues — saying good bilateral relations were important for economic development.
Â"I accept your invitation to me and my wife to visit India with great pleasure,Â" Musharraf said in a letter to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Â"We wish to see a stable prosperous India at peace with its neighbors,Â" the letter said.
Â"Pakistan has always sought to establish tension-free and cooperative relations with India, so that our two peoples may be able to devote their resources and energies to the task of economic and social development,Â" it said.
Musharraf's letter came four days after Vajpayee broke a two-year lull in high-level talks between the two rival nuclear powers by inviting the Pakistani leader to India.
While announcing the peace invitation, India at the same time said it was ending a six-month cease-fire in Kashmir — a move that drew sharp criticism from Pakistan.
The Himalayan region is claimed by both nations. Two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan since independence in 1947 were fought over Kashmir.
In his letter Tuesday, Musharraf said he looks Â"forward to sincere and candid discussions ... to resolve the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people.Â" Jammu and Kashmir is what the state is called in India, which controls two-thirds of the disputed region.
Musharraf said Pakistan is also Â"ready to discuss all other outstanding issues between our two countries as well.Â"
It was not immediately clear when the meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf would take place. Nor was it clear if representatives of Kashmiri militant groups, which are fighting for either independence or merger with Pakistan, would attend.
Meanwhile, violence in Indian Kashmir continued unabated Tuesday.
Islamic guerrillas tried to assassinate a federal minister who is the son of the top elected leader in Kashmir but missed their target and injured three schoolgirls, officials said.
The grenade attack was carried out at a girls' school in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir.
Omar Abdullah, the junior minister for commerce, escaped unhurt and the schoolgirls were admitted to a local hospital, a federal Home Ministry official said. Abdullah is the son of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, the highest elected leader of Jammu-Kashmir state.
A spokesman for the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, Kashmir's largest militant group, later claimed responsibility in phone calls to newspaper offices in Srinagar.
India says fighting in Kashmir has killed 30,000 people since 1989, when the separatist struggle began. Human rights groups put the number at closer to 60,000.
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