India refuses meeting with Pakistan

NEW DELHI, India -- India ruled out meeting with Pakistan at next week's Non-Aligned Movement summit as the chill in relations between the two countries showed no signs of thawing Wednesday.\nBoth Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will attend the Feb. 24-25 summit in Malaysia.\nThe Non-Aligned Movement groups 114 mostly small and developing countries. It was formed during the Cold War to steer a neutral path between the United States and the Soviet Union.\n"There will be no meeting between Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf," Kanwal Sibal, India's foreign secretary, said Wednesday.\nRelations between the two nuclear armed neighbors touched a new low when India and Pakistan expelled each other's highest-ranking diplomats last week.\nBoth embassies have functioned without ambassadors since last year, following an attack on India's parliament by militants in December 2001. New Delhi accused Pakistan of being behind the raid, which killed 14 people. Islamabad condemned the attack as terrorism and denied involvement.\nThe conflict threatened to spark a fourth war between the countries. Intense international pressure defused much of the tension, but the ambassadors have not returned.\nThe diplomatic dispute worsened Feb. 10 when the deputy heads of mission were expelled. India accused the Pakistani diplomat of channeling funds to rebels in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Islamabad accused Indian diplomats of "actions unbecoming their status" -- a term that usually refers to spying. Each nation denied the other's accusations.\nVajpayee and Musharraf were last in the same place in June at a Central Asian security meeting in Kazakhstan. They sat at opposite ends of the table and did not speak to each other.\nIndia and Pakistan last held substantive talks in July 2001 in Agra, India. The meeting broke down in acrimony over the issue of terrorism and their differing views on Kashmir, the Himalayan region both claim in its entirety.