Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee ruled out talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf as the two leaders left for a security conference in central Asia on Sunday, seen as an opportunity to ease war tensions.

Both leaders will come under intense pressure in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to meet and agree to step back from the brink of an all-out conflict between the nuclear-armed enemies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is among those trying to arrange a meeting between the two leaders. He still intends to speak to the two men individually during the Almaty summit in the hope of finding common ground.

Separately, the United States is stepping up the diplomatic pressure by sending Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the region next week.

But leaving for the conference, Vajpayee dampened expectations of any breakthrough. "There is no such plan," Vajpayee told reporters at the airport, referring to the prospects of meeting Musharraf at the 16-nation security conference.

However, he did say he would give "serious consideration" to talks at some point if there was evidence Musharraf was making good on his promise to curb Islamic militant raids into Indian Kashmir.

"Dangerous but not inevitable"

Last week, Britian’s foreign secretary Jack Straw said "the situation is dangerous, but not inevitable".

But severe difficulties remain.

To accuse Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharref of failure would invite Indian assault, while to forgive Pakistan would put pressure on India to draw back its army, now poised to strike Pakistan, before a secure deal is reached.

Pakistan says it is fulfilling what India demands. Indeed, it has been cracking down on anti-India militants, either by cutting radio links between militants on either side of the Kashmiri border, or by dismantling camps for terrorists in Kashmir.

But India wants more – it calls for the Pakistan’s terrorism machine to be shut down once and for all, and not merely momentarily maimed.

However, Musharraf’s current standing is somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

According to a recent poll, 72 per cent of urban Pakistanis are in favour of him. Most support his banning of extremist Islamic groups earlier this year. And support, it shows, for the militants in Kashmir, is slipping.

However, it is the small, but lethal minority, which threatens Musharraf’s rule.The extremists, who accuse Musharraf of collaborating with the Americans in the war against terrorism, may well repeat an attack similar to the bomb last month which killed 11 French engineers in Karachi, which is thought to go back to Islamic militants.

In addition, remnants of the Al Qaeda network are suspected to be hiding in Pakistan’s north western regions, and some of the country’s larger cities. They could prove a deadly factor if linked up to Pakistan’s own militants.

What is needed now is cafeful diplomatic pressure from outside, to push Pakistan and Idia from the dangerous brink without letting one or the other trip up.

The security conference in Almaty may be a first step.