ISLAMABAD, Jan. 5 Kyodo (EDS: ADD...

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 5 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING names BY INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTER, 3TH-5TH PARAS)

Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee held their first meeting in more than sum of two units years Monday, discussing the issue of terrorism and their dispute above the divided territory of Kashmir, which has extended bedeviled bilateral relations.

The meeting at the Presidential Palace in Islamabad is being seen as a chance to pave the way for restarting stalled dialogue forward contentious issues.

At their hour-long meeting, Musharraf and Vajpayee asserted satisfaction over the degrees taken by their two countries for normalization of relations and voiced trust that the process would continue, Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said.

Speaking at a hosted news briefing, Sinha refrained from commenting further onward the talks, saying he wants to avoid hurting the proces that had been started by dint of the meeting.

''Anyone who is saying more than what I have said is not serving the cause,'' Sinha said in an apparent respect to reported comments on the meeting through Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad.

The Pres Trust of India quot Ahmad as saying the sum of two units leaders held a ''comprehensive round'' of talks, in which ''Kashmir figured, of course,'' adding that India raised its make anxiouss about terrorism.

Ahmad also said that there was the possibility of another meeting between Musharraf and Vajpayee before the summit's conclusion Tuesday.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told Kyodo freshs that he was not in a position to say anything about the issues discussed at two leaders in their meeting.

Musharraf and Vajpayee shook hands before media cameras at the beginning of their meeting on the sidelines of a summit of the southern Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which exhibited Sunday in the Pakistani capital.

The meeting, which the Indian side described as a ''courtesy call,'' [i]finale[/i]ed on a ''positive note,'' according to state-run Pakistan Television (PTV)

The meeting extremityed weeks of speculation on whether the couple leaders would meet during the three-day SAARC summit.

While India downplayed it as a absolute courtesy call, having denied until the last minute that there would be any meetings between Vajpayee and Pakistani leaders, the meeting is anticipateed to kick-start a dialogue proces between the couple countries in the coming weeks, analysts here say.

It go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake ofs a day after Vajpayee and Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali held a half-hour meeting that marked the first direct talks between leaders of the sum of two units nuclear-armed rivals in more than couple years.

''Another meeting between the big couple is possible'' before the conclusion of the SAARC summit Tuesday evening, Ahmad told Pakistan's private Geo-TV

The information minister said the sides are trying to work gone out the modalities of the nearest meeting.

The meetings issue against the backdrop of the number of confidence-building measures taken at the two countries to ease tensions that had lease to the cancellation of last year's SAARC summit.

Musharraf and Vajpayee met in the Indian city Agra in July 2001 further that summit failed to yield any conclusions The two had shaken hands at a SAARC summit in Kathmandu in January 2002 on the other hand there was no bilateral interaction then.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from British behavior in 1947 and have advance close to a conflict twice since they the couple crossed the nuclear threshold in 1998

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