NEW DELHI (Islamweb & Agencies) - The leaders of India and Pakistan will focus on troubled Kashmir -- cause of two of the three wars between their nations -- at a weekend summit despite New Delhi's desire for a broader agenda. (Read photo caption below).

The meeting between Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is being held on Sunday in Agra, the city of India's famed monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

Musharraf is due in New Delhi around 8:15 a.m. on Saturday and will meet senior Indian ministers and opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, going on to Agra on Sunday morning.

Musharraf was born in the Indian capital but his Muslim family migrated to Pakistan after the bloody partition of the Sub-Continent that followed independence from Britain in 1947. He is due to visit his ancestral home in congested old Delhi.

Analysts believe there is unlikely to be a direct conflict if the summit ends in acrimony, but a failure to make headway on Kashmir could mean more blood is spilled there.

KASHMIR A LABORATORY

``Kashmir will be a laboratory where the two countries will test their strength,'' said Sheikh Showkat Hussain, who teaches law at Kashmir University.

``Violence in Kashmir is bound to escalate by horrific proportions.''

Pakistan controls a third of Kashmir, and India frequently accuses Islamabad of arming many of the dozen or so militant groups fighting New Delhi's rule in its part.

Pakistan, which wants a 1948 U.N. resolution for a plebiscite on the future of the state to be implemented, denies the charges, saying it provides only moral support.

Both sides also menaced each other with nuclear weapons tests in 1999, a development that shocked the West and brought economic sanctions from the United States, Japan and other nations.The summit will be the first in over two years and only the fifth to be held on each other's territory since 1972, when they fought a third war, this time over the territory of East Pakistan that became Bangladesh.

Some 4,500 security personnel have deployed in Agra and police in New Delhi said they had tightened security to ward off threats from terrorist organizations.

PHOTO CAPTION:

A huge crowd of Pakistani and Indian residents gather to watch the Pakistani and Indian border security forces perform their daily flag lowering ceremonies at the Wagah border post July 12, 2001. More than half a century after the hasty partition of the Asian subcontinent by departing British colonialists, relations between India and Pakistan are still dogged by hatred, suspicion and misunderstanding. The two nations are scheduled to hold a summit July 14-16 for summit focusing on disputed in the Himalayan region of Kashmir. (Mohsin Raza/Reuters