The excitement generated by Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s invitation last month to Pakistani chief executive general Pervez Musharraf, for peace talks in Delhi, quickly proved hollow when the very different positions of the two sides were made clear.
Even as Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was being dined in Lahore, Pakistan, at least 34 persons were killed in the troubled Kashmir Valley over the two-day period on February 19 and 20.