Putin attempts to broker talks on Kashmir conflict

President Vladimir Putin of Russia will appeal to the Pakistani President and the Indian Prime Minister to hold face-to-face peace talks, as he seeks to join the growing number of would-be mediators in the India-Pakistan conflict.

"I think President Putin can persuade India to join a dialogue," Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf, said yesterday on his way to a regional summit in the Kazakhstan capital, Almaty, which is also to be attended by the Russian and Indian leaders.

But when he arrived in Almaty yesterday, the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was still rejecting the idea of a meeting with the Pakistani leader, who will arrive in the city later today.

The 16-nation regional security summit runs until tomorrow. Mr Putin is the first head of state to talk to both leaders. While Russia may not have much leverage with Pakistan, which has traditionally been closer to the US, it is a major supplier of military hardware to India, which buys $1bn (£690m) in weaponry each year. But Mr Putin faces an uphill struggle, as India has consistently refused outside mediation on the dispute with Kashmir, which Delhi considers to be a bilateral issue.

India's ambassador to Kazakhstan, Vidya Sagar, said that the regional security conference was "not a forum to discuss India-Pakistan issues" and that there would be no talks "at any level". Pakistan, meanwhile, wants outside intervention to help resolve the simmering dispute, which has provoked two of its three wars with India.

More heavy hitters are on their way to the region. The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State, are expected to deliver a strong message in the coming days amid concern that Pakistan's intention to redeploy soldiers from the Afghan-Pakistani border to Kashmir would adversely affect the US "campaign against terrorism".

In 1966, Russia's mediation put an end to the second war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. However, diplomats say that the two situations cannot be directly compared because of the wider implications of the present crisis for the "war on terror".

Mr Putin consulted US officials in Moscow before his departure for Almaty. Even if he fails to persuade the leaders to hold direct talks, his intervention could helpMr Rumsfeld's visit, in which he is to hold separate talks with the two leaders. The US was reported to be willing to share intelligence information with both sidesto satisfy India's demand for proof that Pakistan was closing the training camps for militants on its side of the Line of Control dividing Kashmir.

Mr Vajpayee said that although there was "no plan" for talks with General Musharraf at the Almaty summit, he would give "serious consideration" to a meeting at a later stage "if we see the result on the ground" of General Musharraf's pledge to stop cross-border attacks over the long-running dispute.