In a meeting with General Musharraf later this week, Mr Blair is expected to welcome the arrests but urge him to go further.. “You can’t clap with only one hand,” Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf remarked recently when asked why it was so difficult to arrange peace talks with India. But yesterday in Kathmandu he succeeded in bouncing India’s Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, into a handshake. Mr Vajpayee half-rose to his feet and managed a grim little smile.The armies of the two chronically hostile, nuclear-armed neighbours remain fully mobilised along the 2,000-mile common border, and until yesterday’s unscheduled flesh-pressing the two leaders had barely glanced at one another during the conference.The present crisis erupted on 13 December when five terrorists tried to blast their way into India’s parliament building in Delhi.

Fourteen people died during the attack, including all the terrorists. India claims they were Pakistani citizens, members of two Islamic militant groups fighting to wrest Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, from Indian control and attach it to Pakistan.This summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has been delayed for over two years by successive Indo-Pakistani disputes and upheavals, and has been completely overshadowed by the latest one. It was the first opportunity for the two sides to meet since the present crisis blew up, but there has been no hint of the hoped-for thaw.In his speech, President Musharraf said that his government “remains ready to engage in sustained dialogue with India at all times and all levels … Let us together commence a journey of peace, harmony and progress in South Asia.” But he also spoke of the need to identify “the causes that breed terrorists, that drive people to hopelessness and desperation”. He drew a distinction between “acts of legitimate resistance and freedom struggles on the one hand, and acts of terrorism on the other”.Under pressure from India, General Musharraf has arrested leaders of the two Pakistan-based groups that India blames for the attacks on its parliament.

But he has taken no action against groups with roots in Indian Kashmir, such as Hizb-ul Mujahedin. India refuses to accept this distinction, insisting that Kashmir is an integral part of India and condemning all the militant groups alike.Following the surprise handshake, Mr Vajpayee left the stage for a few minutes to gather his wits. He then responded by saying: “I am glad that General Musharraf extended a hand of friendship to me … now [he] must follow the gesture by not permitting any activity in Pakistan or any territory in its control today which enables terrorists to perpetrate mindless violence in India.”Yesterday also brought the news that Pakistani authorities had arrested another 200 militants overnight. Most were members of Sipah-e-Sahaba, a sectarian Sunni group blamed for numerous killings of Shia Muslims and suspected in a massacre of 17 Christians on 28 October 2001 The group is not, however, active in Kashmir.. US forces in Afghanistan took custody yesterday of one of the al-Qa’ida terrorist organisation’s most senior figures, as well as the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan. But Mullah Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban, eluded capture.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former ambassador to Pakistan who acted as the Taliban’s spokesman in the early stages of the war, came into American custody yesterday after the Islamabad government refused his asylum application and deported him to Afghanistan. Both men may soon be transferred to the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.A number of British citizens, captured while fighting in the ranks of the Taliban and handed over to the Americans, are also expected to be sent to Guantanamo Bay. The existence of British Muslim prisoners became known after three of them asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to inform the newly opened British embassy in Kabul. According to diplomatic sources, there are other incarcerated Britons who have not been officially registered, because they have not notified the authorities.The three men, in their mid-20s, were captured by fighters of the Uzbek warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, following the siege of Kunduz in December. They were being held with 3,000 other inmates at Shibarghan prison, near Mazar-i-Sharif, when they were visited by Red Cross officials.The Foreign Office has been unable to contact their families, because not enough information has been passed on..