'Meet at New York unlikely'

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, AUG. 16. Pakistan today hinted that the President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, might not meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly of the United Nations scheduled for the fourth week of September.

``A meeting between the two leaders does not seem to be on the cards,'' was the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman's cryptic response to a question at a news conference here.

However, he seems to have based his comments on the statements attributed to the Foreign Secretary, Ms. Chokila Iyer, after her meeting with her Pakistani counterpart, Mr. Inam ul Haq, on the sidelines of the SAARC meeting at Colombo.

The spokesman referred to Ms. Iyer's reported statement that the Prime Minister had accepted Gen. Musharraf's invitation to visit Islamabad to continue the process of dialogue.

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