PM-Musharraf meeting goes off well, joint statement shortly

Havana, Sep 16 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today held a crucial one-on-one meeting, lasting more than an hour, with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on the margins of the NAM Summit during which they discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations between the two countries.

Senior officials said the meeting went off well. ''It was a good meeting,'' they said. The two leaders are expected to issue a Joint Statement shortly.

The much-awaited meeting took place at the Protocol House here.

The Prime Minister was escorted to the meeting by Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary-designate Shiv Shankar Menon, while Gen Musharraf arrived, accompanied by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri.

President Musharraf was wearing a dark grey suit while Dr Singh wore his traditional dark 'bandgala' suit.

Before starting the meeting at 1000 hrs (local time; 1930 hrs IST), the two leaders shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before posing for photographs.

According to senior Indian officials, the Prime Minister would do some plain-speaking, telling Gen Musharraf in unequivocal terms that it would be difficult for New Delhi to resume the peace process if Pakistan did not stop promoting cross-border terrorism.

This was the first meeting between the two leaders after the recent spurt in terrorist activities in India, due to which the dialogue process had to be stalled in July. The serial blasts in Mumbai on July 11 forced India to put on hold the Foreign Secretary-level talks which were to be held later during that month in New Delhi.

The two leaders had last met in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September, 2005.

Before that, Gen Musharraf had visited Delhi in April last year to watch a cricket match between India and Pakistan. During his meeting with Dr Singh, he had reassured India that he would not allow Pakistani territory to be used for terrorist activities against this country.

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