India and Pakistan Dig In Heels at Summit

June 4 -- As the international community kept up the pressure to ease tensions between the leaders of India and Pakistan at a regional summit in Kazakhstan today, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf refused to renounce first use of nuclear weapons.

At a regional security summit in the Kazakh city of Almaty, Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee sat at the same table for the first time in months, but did not speak to each other — at least not directly.

The tensions between the two South Asian nations dominated the 16-nation security meeting as Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a bid to negotiate the current dangerous impasse between the two nuclear rivals.

But hours after the two leaders made belligerent speeches at the summit, there was little sign of hope for diplomats working to pull the two countries back from the brink of war.

Speaking to reporters in Almaty today after a meeting with Putin, Musharraf stressed that Pakistan would not change its policy on the contentious "first use" of nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict with India.

"The possession of nuclear weapons by any state obviouslyimplies they will be used under some circumstances," he said.

India had earlier reaffirmed its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, a policy Putin told reporters the Indian prime minister had repeated during their talks on the sidelines of the summit today.

The rising tensions between the two countries over the disputed Kashmir region came as the United States was expected to issue a statement strongly urging and strongly recommending U.S. citizens to leave the region. Last week the State Department encouraged non-essential diplomats as well as U.S. citizens in India to voluntarily leave the country.

India: Pakistan Didn’t Keep Its Promises

Meanwhile, at the summit in Almaty today, Putin persisted in his efforts to calm tensions in the region as he held separate talks with the two leaders and invited Musharraf to Moscow.