Putin claims 'positive signals' as Vajpayee and Musharraf refuse to meet

The inaugural meeting of the pet project of the President of Kazakhstan, a security conference intended to rival the Helsinki process as a way to bring peace to central and south Asia, culminated in an ugly stalemate yesterday, with the leaders of India and Pakistan scowling at each other across the conference chamber.

Nurusultan Nazarbayev, President of his vast, thinly populated country, may run a pretty ramshackle sort of democracy, but no one could accuse him of lacking visionary ideas. Ten years ago he conceived the cumbersomely named Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia. For years it seemed no more than a personal obsession, but at last it came into being.

Unfortunately its first test – averting a fourth major war between India and Pakistan, both of which now have nuclear weapons – has proved tricky.

Resisting intense pressure from other delegates yesterday, General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's President, refused to renounce his country's willingness to use its nuclear weapons first. "The possession of nuclear weapons by any state obviously implies they will be used under some circumstances," he insisted.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India's Prime Minister, under pressure because of his refusal to take up General Musharraf's offer of dialogue, continued to scold Pakistan, as he had done on Monday. "Nuclear powers should not use nuclear blackmail," he said. On Monday, India's Defence Ministry said India "does not believe in the use of nuclear weapons".

Russia remains a stalwart ally of India, and its main supplier of arms, and President Vladimir Putin had clearly set much store by bringing the Indian and Pakistani leaders together. But they declined to participate in the three-way dialogue he had envisaged. After his meeting with General Musharraf, Mr Putin told Mr Vajpayee: "I must say he has given a series of, in my view, serious, positive signals, and I will have the pleasure in our meeting coming up to tell you about this." But Mr Putin seemed in a minority of one at the conference in his ability to hear sweet mood music.

General Musharraf said: "India is continually threatening Pakistan with an attack, and also refusing dialogue. Everyone was desiring a meeting between me and Mr Vajpayee. I think the whole world is disappointed that we did not meet and talk here."

India has consistently refused to re-enter dialogue with Pakistan until what it calls "cross-border terrorism" – the infiltration of Islamic radicals trained in Pakistan across the border into Indian-controlled Kashmir – ceases for good.

The failure of the Almaty conference is not the end of diplomatic efforts to avert war. This week, the American deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage flies to the region to try to build on the frail achievements last week of Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, who spoke of "material" coming out of his meetings that was "worthy of further consideration".

Infiltration across the Line of Control in Kashmir is sharply down this week, according to American and Indian sources, but India remains to be convinced that even if it stops altogether it will be anything more than a tactical pause.

If India can be satisfied that infiltration has ceased, diplomats hope to persuade Delhi to take some steps – easily reversible ones to begin with – in the direction of reducing its military build-up. One insider said yesterday: "They are trying to make India see that any war with Pakistan would be most unlikely to lead to an end to terrorism. It is likely to be either ineffective or catastrophic."

Up on the border, however, the trigger fingers of a million troops who have been fully mobilised for six months continue to twitch. A senior Indian defence official blurted yesterday that Delhi had a "moral and legal right" to punish Pakistan. "We can strike at three hours' notice," he boasted.