ALMATY, June 4: President Pervez Musharraf said here on Tuesday that he did not shake hands or meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a regional conference in the Kazakh economic capital.

“No, I did not meet him, and no, I didn’t shake hands with him,” said Musharraf, who had unexpectedly approached the Indian prime minister and shook his hand during a regional summit in January in Katmandu.

“I shook hands with him once before, and I was waiting for him to reciprocate. Maybe, I was waiting for him to shake hands with me,” said Musharraf.

Earlier Tuesday, Vajpayee once again rejected Pakistan’s offer of talks on their bitter dispute over Kashmir as Islamabad blamed Indian intransigence for the standoff between the nuclear rivals. Both men met separately, however, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who emerged from those meetings to say that both leaders had expressed to him a desire to resolve their border conflict through peaceful means.

NO EYE CONTACT: Vajpayee and Musharraf studiously avoided each other on Tuesday and did not exchange even a single glance as the summit ended and everyone walked out of the CICA conference hall, said an earlier report.—AFP