President Bush on Thursday told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf democracy is key to his country's future, a U.S. official said. Officials also said Bush told Musharraf and Indian Prime Atal Behari Vajpayee, in separate meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, that they must address problems at the root of their dispute over Kashmir to prevent recurrent flare-ups of tensions.

But there was little indication of progress.

Bush urged Musharraf to keep Kashmiri nationalists from infiltrating from Pakistan across the line of control in Indian-ruled Kashmir, as an essential step toward a resumption of talks, the official said.

"He (Bush) does look forward to some resolution of the underlying problems in Kashmir," the U.S. official told reporters.

"He was telling both sides.

But Musharraf, in an uncompromising address to the General Assembly, said India and Pakistan's "eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation" over Kashmir remained "extremely grave" and called on his neighbor and nuclear rival to join in taking steps to defuse it permanently.

Bush also discussed the volatile dispute over Kashmir, which has at times brought the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors to the brink of war, with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"They agreed on their hope to move beyond crisis management, to real solutions on Kashmir," a senior U.S. official said.
But the crisis comes amid numerous other issues complicating U.S. relations with the two countries.

Pakistan is a crucial ally in the U.S. battle against terrorist networks, and Washington needs its cooperation hunting down al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.

With India, Washington is seeking to improve relations, particularly in the areas of defense cooperation and the economy.

Bush and Vajpayee agreed to explore ways to expand cooperation in space, energy, high technology, commerce and science, the U.S. official said.

PHOTO CAPTION

President George W. Bush meets with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in New York September 12, 2002. Bush told Musharraf that democracy is key to his country's future, a U.S. official said. (Win McNamee/Reuters)