Posted on: Saturday, July 14, 2001

Editorial
Crucial summit begins between India, Pakistan

In a homecoming that underscores the tortured history of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is expected to visit his childhood home during his visit to India this weekend for a summit meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Musharraf was born in the Indian capital, but when he was 4, his Muslim family migrated to Pakistan after the bloody partition that followed independence from Britain in 1947.

The world holds out little hope for great progress in these talks. Yet since both nations joined the nuclear club, the global stakes are far higher.

India wants the summit to address issues ranging from trade to nuclear weapons, but Musharraf insists the talks focus on Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in Hindu-dominated India and the cause of two of the three wars between the two nations.

Pakistan wants a 1948 U.N. resolution for a plebiscite on the future of the state to be implemented.

Observers have said a popular groundswell of support for peace in both nations may make this summit different. But intransigent statements by officials on either side held out little hope for a breakthrough.