Terrorism must end in Kashmir or no to SAARC summit: Vajpayee

NEW DELHI, Dec 4 (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has warned he would not attend a regional South Asian summit in Pakistan next month unless cross-border militancy stops in Kashmir. "I can consider going to the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit early next year provided infiltration and cross-border terrorism stops completely in Kashmir," Vajpayee told a news conference in this northern Indian city. India accuses Pakistan of pushing Islamic guerrillas into the Indian-administered zone of Kashmir, where a Muslim rebellion has left more than 37,500 people dead since 1989. Vajpayee also said that bilateral issues should not be raised up at the regional summit. "Pakistan does not like to talk on any other issue other than Kashmir and Kashmir is not a SAARC issue and so there is no point in discussing Kashmir at the summit," the prime minister said. Vajpayee said India's attendance at the summit also hinged on the SAARC making tangible progress in regional economic cooperation. "Pakistan has not acted on the recommendations in this area agreed upon in previous SAARC meetings," the prime minister said. SAARC has sought to forge two regional trade pacts, the SAARC Preferential Trade Agreement and the SAARC Free Trade Agreement, but India-Pakistan differences have hampered progress. India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, with a dispute over the Himalayan state of Kashmir sparking two of their three wars since then. India and Pakistan control parts of Kashmir and claim all of the scenic Himalayan region. Both sides until recently had hundreds of thousands of troops on their shared borders, sent there after the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi blames on Pakistan-based militant groups. The South Asian regional club, which accounts for a third of the world's workforce, groups Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives.