Bush, Putin Shift Concerns to South Asia

25/05/2002| IslamWeb

President Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin, their own weapons treaty just signed, Saturday shifted their focus to trying to calm the mounting tension in South Asia. Bush urged Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to fulfill his pledge to stop militants from carrying out raids in the Indian-controlled sector of disputed Kashmir. (Read photo caption)

"It's very important that President Musharraf...does what he said he was going to do in his speech on terrorism and that is to stop the incursions across the border," Bush said.

India blames Pakistan for attacks by Islamic militants in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state, and further afield. The nuclear neighbors have massed more than a million men along their border, raising fears of their fourth war since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

"We are spending a lot of time on this subject," said Bush, whose summit with Putin moved to Russia's former imperial capital Saturday from Moscow.

"We are making it very clear to both parties that there is no benefit in war, there is no benefit in a clash that could lead to wider war. We are deeply concerned about the rhetoric.

"There is a lot of diplomatic effort going into bringing some calm and reason to the region," he said.

The two leaders said they were alarmed by events in the region, including the testing of a Pakistani missile on Saturday.

"Of course the testing, while there is escalating tension, has really aggravated the situation and I'm concerned about that," Putin said.

He suggested the two South Asian leaders try to sort out their differences at a regional conference on confidence building measures in Asia early next month.

"I hope they will come so that we can together discuss and prevent a further escalation of the conflict," Putin said.

Regional leaders will meet in the Central Asia republic of Kazakhstan on June 3-5.

PHOTO CAPTION

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin lay a wreath at the Monument to the Motherland in Piskarevskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 25, 2002. The cemetery is the site of the mass graves of some 500,000 victims of the 900-day siege of Leningrad in World War II. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)