Musharraf shuns Straw

Straw will wrap up his South Asia mission in Pakistan, where he arrived Saturday from New Delhi

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Britain's foreign minister has played down speculation Pakistan's president has shunned him because he is seen as to bias towards India's position on the disputed territory of Kashmir.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was in Pakistan this weekend seeking a permanent end to infiltration by Islamic militants based on its soil into Indian-controlled Kashmir.

But Straw did not meet Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, with Pakistani newspapers saying Musharraf decided against such a meeting because his advisers consider Straw biased in favor of India.

The British diplomat dismissed such reports as inaccurate, saying he had intended only to meet the foreign ministers of both India and Pakistan. Straw did not meet with Musharraf's Indian counterpart Prime Minister Behari Atal Vajpayee during his preceding visit to New Delhi.

He met with Pakistan's minister of state for foreign affairs, Inamul Haq, before returning to New Delhi to catch flight back to London. British diplomats would not say whether Straw had sought a meeting with Musharraf, The Associated Press reported.

The British diplomat had arrived in Islamabad from India as part of a diplomatic effort to ease tensions that nearly erupted into war between the two nuclear-armed rivals last month.

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On his third mission to South Asia this year, Straw was under pressure to lean on Islamabad to act against Islamic militants attacking Indian targets in the disputed Kashmir region.

Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to visit both Pakistan and India this month, and some Pakistani commentators believed both sides were waiting for the Powell visit before offering any new concessions.

India accuses Pakistan of backing Islamic militants, fighting New Delhi's rule in Kashmir. Pakistan denies the charges, saying that it gives only moral support to groups fighting what it calls a "freedom struggle" in the disputed region.

Arms sales

Straw denied that Britain's arms sales to India had any bearing on the dispute between the South Asian neighbors.

"The key to resolving the problem across the Line of Control does not lie in decisions, which are (related to) arms control criteria," Straw was reported as saying in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.

Straw has said that Britain's arms sales to developing countries were among the most transparent and stringent in the world.

Although tension on the subcontinent had eased slightly in the last six weeks,Straw conceded the "situation remains difficult."

"We are glad to know that progress has been made to reduce the level of tensions, but obviously further steps need to be taken before we have a dialogue," the British foreign secretary told reporters Friday.

"What is obvious is that one of the keys to a peaceful solution is an end to infiltration ... And that is something to which all parties are committed."

It is Straw's first visit since late May when tempers on the subcontinent peaked and the threat of war became a very real possibility.

More than 1 million troops were posted along the shared Indian-Pakistani border and the Kashmiri Line of Control, which divides the disputed region between them.

The standoff in South Asia was sparked by a suicide raid on India's parliament in December and a May attack on an Indian army camp near Jammu.

Fears of a major conflict subsided after Islamabad bowed to intense international diplomatic pressure and promised to crack down on militant insurgency from Pakistani soul into Indian controlled Kashmir.