BANGALORE, Oct 20: Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, will go to Islamabad to attend the 12th Saarc summit due to be held in January 2003, Defence Minister, George Fernandes, said on Sunday, confirming similar pronouncements by other ministers.

“At the end of the Kathmandu summit, it was announced by the government that the prime minister will participate in the next summit in Islamabad. That commitment so far holds good,” Fernandes told reporters here.

Vajpayee and President Musharraf both attended the Saarc summit in January in Kathmandu, but held no bilateral talks on the sidelines of the meeting.

On Friday, Indian junior foreign minister, Digvijay Singh, made it clear that Vajpayee intended heading for Pakistan for the January 2003 summit.

Foreign Minister, Yashwant Sinha, however, cast doubt that the summit would take place at all, but said if it did, Vajpayee would indeed attend.

“But the summit should have an objective and it should not be just to see each other’s faces,” Sinha told reporters in New Delhi.

Claiming there had been no progress in the Saarc grouping due to Pakistan’s “rigid stand” at this year’s Kathmandu summit, Sinha said: “If there is no progress, there is no point in holding the summit.”

Defence Minister Fernandes on Sunday ruled out any immediate dialogue with Islamabad on the thorny issue of Kashmir.

Asked whether there is a possibility of a cessation of hostilities in Kashmir, Fernandes said, “There is no question of any kind of ceasefire. Where we are attacked we will respond. We cannot lower our guard when someone is attacking us.”

The defence minister said New Delhi’s decision to partially pull back troops from the border with Pakistan did indicate a lowering of tensions but that the time was not yet ripe to resume talks.

“At the moment there is no possibility of any kind of dialogue with Pakistan because cross-border terrorism has not stopped,” he said.

“We have chosen to redeploy our forces and Pakistan has responded. In so far as terrorism is concerned, we have been fighting for more than two decades and we’ll keep on fighting it.”

Asked if the move to redeploy the troops had come about through international pressure, the minister shot back: “Anybody who says that is out of his mind.”

New Delhi announced last week it would partially pull back troops from the border with Pakistan, but not in Kashmir.

The move, welcomed by the international community and arch-rival Pakistan, was reciprocated by Islamabad which announced it, too, would pull back troops.—AFP