'No invitation to Musharraf'

By Amit Baruah

BALI (Indonesia), JAN. 12. No invitation had been extended to the Pakistani Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to visit India, the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee's Principal Secretary, Mr. Brajesh Mishra, said here this evening.

Mr. Mishra also said a summit meeting between India and Pakistan was not being considered ``at this moment'', a phrase he used a couple of times while talking to a group of reporters accompanying the Prime Minister.

``I think we can truthfully say that we are reviewing the situation on the Line of Control on... our side of the LoC and how to proceed further,'' he said making it plain that further steps on the India-Kashmir-Pakistan triangle were possible.

Speculation about the summit has mounted after a report in the Pakistan Observer that Mr. Vajpayee had invited Gen. Musharraf to New Delhi. The Prime Minister himself was quoted as telling Reuters in Jakarta that he had seen the newspaper report, ``but no date has been fixed as yet''. Asked whether Gen. Musharraf would go, the Prime Minister had said: ``Even that is not final''. ``This is a question that should be directed at him. How do I know when he will come?'' During his briefing, Mr. Mishra, however, said: ``So far as I am aware and I should be aware of various things, there is no consideration at this moment of any summit-level meeting between India and Pakistan.''

To a hypothetical question on a possible role for the Rawalpindi- based JKLF leader, Mr. Amanullah Khan, in the new developments, the Principal Secretary said: ``I just can't talk about it at the moment.''

Mr. Mishra, who also doubles as the National Security Adviser, said a decision on a issuing passports to individual leaders of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference or all the leaders and their travel to Pakistan would be taken after the Prime Minister returned to New Delhi on January 14. Given the new perceptions about the Hurriyat in New Delhi and the fact that a visit to Pakistan will be a major departure in the country's foreign policy for the past decade, some more steps on Kashmir and Pakistan appear imminent.

Asked whether he ruled out a future India-Pakistan summit level meeting, the Principal Secretary said: ``How can I say that some months hence or next year, it will not take place... of course, I don't rule out a summit between India and Pakistan sometime in the future.''

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