NEW DELHI, Oct 8: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, apparently taking charge after a barrage of bellicose remarks by hard-line cabinet colleagues targeting Islamabad, declared on Tuesday that there would be no war with Pakistan.

Along with his remarks that should please the world which does not wish to be distracted from Iraq these days, Vajpayee, however, had a few disparaging things to say about the elections being held in Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf’s regime.

“There will be no war. Pakistan is a neighbouring country and we would like to develop normal relations. But whenever India has taken the initiative for a dialogue, its efforts have not succeeded,” Vajpayee said in remarks to reporters in London beamed in New Delhi by Indian TV channels.

Earlier, en route in Cyprus, he told a meeting of Indian expatriates: “We want friendship with our neighbouring countries. So I went to Lahore by bus. But the bus later got punctured.”

Indian channels reserved effusion for Vajpayee for an entirely different reason. “He was at his vintage best as he unmasked Gen Musharraf for his double-speak and praised the people of Kashmir for their outright rejection of terrorist violence and support to democratic process,” one channel observed.

Vajpayee had other things to focus on, including an interesting declaration that his 24-party coalition government was strong and stable.

Star News, in a dispatch from London, quoted Vajpayee as accusing Pakistan “of conducting farcical parliamentary elections and said that no one takes them seriously.” “He also blamed Islamabad for breaking the pledge to stop cross- border infiltration but ruled out the probability of a war,” the channel said.

Vajpayee is on a six-day European tour and will meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Saturday.

Star News quoted Pakistan’s National Human Rights Commissions as being critical too of the elections. “The HRCP has been concerned at the number of reports and allegations received of tampering with the electoral process by the government,” HRCP chairman Afrasiab Khattak and human rights activist Asma Jehangir said at a press conference.

Several Indian officials, including senior ministers, have gone on record in the last three weeks saying more or less that India was keeping war as an option to sort out its problems with Pakistan.

That problem includes New Delhi’s assertion that Islamabad continues to arm and train Kashmiri freedom fighters. The charge is denied by Islamabad, which say it gives the assorted groups only political and moral support.

MISSILE TEST: Pakistan’s second test in a row of its nuclear capable Shaheen missile drew a tepid response from India on Tuesday as Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, in a departure from the usual acrimony that marks such occasions, said it was Islamabad’s sovereign right to carry it out.

Asked what India would do in response to the test, Sinha, in Berlin on a tour, was quoted by Star News as saying: “Nothing. They are a sovereign country. They are testing their missiles, good luck to them.”

Sinha was speaking after a meeting with his German counterpart, Joschka Fischer.

Sinha, according to Star News, asserted that India had “exercised maximum restraint and would continue to do so” but “there was no such commitment from Pakistan”.

Star News said China, Pakistan’s close ally offered a muted response to Islamabad’s second successive ballistic missile test by merely hoping that South Asia could maintain peace and stability.

“We have noted the relevant reports. We hope that South Asia can maintain peace and stability,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said when asked to comment on the missile tests.

Senior officials at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi said while they had informed New Delhi ahead of both the tests no such intimation had come from India when it decided within hours of the Friday test to try its own surface-to-air ‘Akash’ missile.

In fact, the United States too has been quoted as saying that Pakistan notified it about test-firing of Hatf IV or the Shaheen but India, which carried out a back-to-back test of ‘Akash’ anti- aircraft missile, did not.

Pakistan “did inform our embassy in Islamabad and issued a notice to mariners” in advance of the medium range missile test, State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher said.

Though India did not notify the US about the Akash test, Boucher said: “It has, notified us and neighbouring countries in the past of its ballistic missile tests.”

Hours after Pakistan test fired Hatf IV on Friday last, India successfully tested its most lethal medium range surface-to-air missile ‘Akash’ with a capability of carrying a payload of 55 kg and engaging four to six targets, Press Trust of India said.