Matthew Chance: Will India and Pakistan talk?

CNN's Matthew Chance

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (CNN) -- With the leaders of 16 Asian nations headed Sunday to Kazakhstan for a regional security summit, the focus was squarely on two of the participants -- India and Pakistan.

Leaders from around the world are looking to the Asian summit to provide an opportunity for India and Pakistan to talk as tensions between the nuclear neighbors simmer over the disputed Kashmir region.

CNN's Matthew Chance has more from the summit site in Almaty.

CHANCE: Sixteen nations [are] here, gathered for the regional security and cooperation summit among Asian nations. The agenda though is likely to be dominated by the continuing standoff between India and Pakistan.

MORE STORIES Faint hopes for India-Pakistan talks

Whether there will be a face-to-face meeting between the Indian and Pakistani leaders is still the subject of much speculation. And certainly, a great deal of people in the region and around the world are hoping that [the conference] will be the venue for that.

And the Russian delegation as well, which has offered to broker talks between the two sides, is saying it's still trying to bring the two sides together.

President [Pervez] Musharraf of Pakistan has indicated his willingness to sit across the table from his Indian counterpart, [Prime Minister] Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Indians though, for their part, continue to resist the idea of third-party mediation and have said that they don't intend to have talks with the Pakistani leadership until there is firm evidence that there's been a crackdown on militants infiltrating from Pakistan into Indian-administered Kashmir.

Nevertheless, though, with tensions boiling over in Kashmir, with the threat of war and the threat even of a possible nuclear exchange between the two countries -- or at least the fear of that among many quarters -- a great deal of diplomatic pressure is being brought to bear both on India to sit down and to talk, and on Pakistan to crack down on those militants infiltrating.

The Indian delegation is expected to arrive here [Sunday]. The Pakistani delegation is coming Monday local time, along with the Russian delegation, which is headed by President Vladimir Putin.

So there is some time, but only a very small window of opportunity for both sides to grasp, to take advantage of this Kazakhstan summit, to step back from the brink.