AGRA, India — The most feared rebel group in Kashmir warned Tuesday that it will intensify attacks after an unsuccessful summit between India and Pakistan, while both countries said they will carry on with peace efforts.
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrillas, said the failure of the Indian and Pakistani leaders to sign an agreement after weekend talks proved that a Muslim holy war, or jihad, was the only solution to the Kashmir dispute.
"Jihad will be accelerated, and India will be dealt with a fatal blow," Saeed told a news conference in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province.
But the foreign ministers of both countries promised Tuesday in separate news conferences that Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will continue to search for a negotiated settlement.
Denying that the summit here was a failure, Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar said that the two leaders had twice come close to agreeing on a joint declaration at the end of the gathering and that their goodwill was strong enough for the peace efforts to continue toward fruition.
"The Agra summit remained inconclusive, but it did not fail," Sattar told reporters in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. "In fact, the two leaders succeeded in covering a broad area of common ground in the draft declaration. That will provide a valuable foundation for the two leaders to reach full agreement at a future meeting."
But even if the Pakistani foreign minister is proven right, a joint declaration would only mark the start of a process that would require difficult compromises from both sides to reach a lasting peace.
The Indian prime minister has accepted an invitation for a follow-up summit in Pakistan, but no date has been set. Sattar said Musharraf and Vajpayee will also meet this fall in New York when world leaders gather at the United Nations headquarters.
The weekend summit ended in deadlock because neither side was willing to budge on fundamental principles.
Pakistan insists that there can't be any improvement in the nations' overall relationship without first making significant progress toward resolving their long dispute over the Kashmir region. India demands "a comprehensive dialogue" including other issues, such as trade, nuclear weapons and what it calls "cross-border terrorism" by Kashmir rebels who it says are supported by Pakistan.
