Sunday, April 20, 2003

The peace concert was held in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, the scene of several deadly terrorist attacks against foreign nationals and minority Christians.

"We have come here to share love and promote peace," a popular Indian Punjabi traditional folk singer, Anaida, told an audience of 2,000.

"We want to see peace, peace and only peace in Pakistan and India," she said.

Standing at her side, Salman Ahmad, the lead singer of Pakistan's hugely popular rock band Junoon, said: "We are also for peace ... we are also for love."

In the past five decades Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, divided between the two but claimed by both in its entirety.

They came dangerously close to a fourth war last year, when New Delhi blamed Pakistan for plotting a December 2001 terrorist attack on India's Parliament that killed 14 people. Pakistan denied the charge.

Over 61,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since 1989, when rebels began fighting for the Muslim-majority region's independence from predominantly Hindu India or merger with Islamic Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Saturday repeated an offer for immediate talks with Pakistan if it ends cross-border infiltration by Muslim militants.

Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed quickly responded by saying "no cross border infiltration is taking place into Indian-occupied Kashmir from Pakistan's soil." Pakistan has offered India talks without conditions.