India, Pakistan leaders meet, call for peace

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf met briefly yesterday for the first time since their nuclear-armed countries came close to war in 2002, and both called for new peace efforts.

Earlier Mr Vajpayee met his Pakistani counterpart Zafarullah Khan Jamali for around 30 minutes, half of that time alone, in a gesture of rapprochement on the sidelines of a regional summit.

In a further sign of progress, Mr Vajpayee shook hands with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, the country's real power, before a state dinner yesterday.

It was not clear if they talked but officials said they would meet properly the next day.

Mr Vajpayee used the opening ceremony of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit to call for a "bold transition" to peace after a half-century of conflict and mistrust.

"We have to change South Asia's image and its standing in the world," Mr Vajpayee said.

"We must make the bold transition from mistrust to trust, from discord to concord and from tension to peace," he continued, to applause.

Mr Musharraf echoed his comments at a dinner of heads of state. "We must put behind us the tarnished legacy of mistrust, bitterness and tension," he said. "We owe this to our people, let us make a solemn pledge not to disappoint them."