Musharraf seeks peace in India on cricket diplomacy

Pakistan's president arrived in India yesterday for a weekend of prayers, peace talks and cricket, his first visit since a disastrous summit in 2001 and a sign of warming ties between the nuclear rivals.

"I come here with a message of peace," President Pervez Musharraf said after praying at South Asia's holiest Muslim shrine in the northern Indian city of Ajmer, his first stop.

But although Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will discuss Kashmir - including "softening" the ceasefire line dividing it - and how to strengthen their relations, no major breakthrough is expected almost three years after near-war.

Rather, the visit itself is the breakthrough. Originally planned as an informal visit for Musharraf to watch India and Pakistan play cricket, it has turned into a virtual summit.

His first stop was the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, which he was to visit in 2001 but cancelled after peace talks with then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee collapsed.

"I wish the differences between the two countries to be reduced and that peace prevails in the region," Musharraf, in a pink turban and white salwar-kameez, said after praying.

The Indian-born Pakistani leader and the Pakistan-born Indian leader are due to meet for dinner in New Delhi on Saturday and for talks on Sunday after watching the start of the sixth and last one-day cricket match between India and Pakistan.

Musharraf's visit comes a week after a new bus service began between the divided parts of Kashmir, a symbolic step after the neighbours came close to war over the Himalayan region in 2002.

The mood has vastly improved, but the rivals remain far apart on Kashmir and neither expects major progress from this trip.

Violence has increased in Kashmir ahead of the bus service and Musharraf's visit - the army said 12 rebels and a soldier had died in fighting in the past 24 hours.

On Thursday, Musharraf told Reuters he had limited expectations from this visit, but he was optimistic Kashmir could eventually be resolved and the peace process was irreversible.

Last year, Musharraf suggested possible solutions for Kashmir that could involve a division of the Muslim-majority region on ethnic lines, demilitarisation, a change of its status to independence, joint control, or even UN control.

India has rejected any redrawing of boundaries. Instead, Singh and Musharraf are due to discuss ways to soften the ceasefire line, including meetings of divided families, more buses, increased tourism and trade and co-operation on forests.

"We need to look at the... (ceasefire line) not just as a divide but as a bridge," Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh told the latest edition of the Outlook news weekly.

"We need to work towards a situation where borders, even in our part of the world, begin to matter less and less." Musharraf is also due to meet Kashmiri separatist leaders, who he says must be brought into peace process for it to work.

There have been two attempts on Musharraf's life in Pakistan and security in Ajmer and New Delhi is intense. Anti-aircraft guns have been placed on the roof of his hotel in the capital as well as around the cricket stadium on the city's outskirts.

Thousands of police will guard the stadium for today's match and commandos and snipers have taken over key rooftops.

After Musharraf recently gave Singh a photo album of the Indian leader's home village in what is now Pakistan, along with some of his school reports, Singh is to give Musharraf a special copy of his birth certificate.

But some newspapers report Musharraf may be a year older than he thinks, with the laminated birth certificate showing he was born in Old Delhi on August 11, 1942, and his Website saying 1943.

In Ajmer, on the edge of the Thar desert about 370 km from Delhi, security forces cleared worshippers from the shrine complex and swept it and the densely built area for bombs.

"The Khwaja stands for Hindu-Muslim unity and brotherhood," said Ashok Kumar, a 48-year-old Hindu music shop owner.

"Hopefully, by Musharraf coming here it will create a better climate for his talks with our prime minister and will soften him so he does not take a tough stand."