New Delhi: India on February 18 ruled out any meeting between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of the upcoming summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Kuala Lumpur and asserted it will counter any attempt by Islamabad to toss "red herrings" to justify terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

"No, they are not going to meet," Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said when asked at a press conference about the prospects of a face-to-face between the two leaders during the two-day summit beginning on February 24.

Sibal said while there was a large consensus in the international community on combating terrorism, there were some countries, which resisted this and "tend to send red herrings" by speaking about its root causes. This, he said, amounts to justifying terrorism.

Asserting that terrorism could not be justified on any ground, he said those seeking moral justification citing "root causes" like territorial conflicts, religious fundamentalism and poverty were on the totally wrong track.

Contesting Pakistan's arguments, he said if these were not eliminated, did it mean that terrorism should be allowed to continue. He said terrorism would be one of the issues to figure during the deliberations.

He also made it clear that India would not be unduly perturbed if Musharraf raked up the Kashmir issue at the summit. "We are not worried about it. They have been doing it in the past at the UN and other fora."

Ahead of the summit, for the first time, a NAM business forum meeting would be held. Besides Vajpayee, it would be addressed by Presidents of South Africa and Indonesia and Prime Ministers of Malaysia and Thailand.

Organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the meeting would focus on trade and investment opportunities and underpin the importance of strategic alliances.

India will focus on economic issues of the 21st Century at the summit, which will also discuss promotion of multilateralism, inadequacies of multilateral trading systems and South-South co-operation.

Sibal said developments in Iraq, Middle East situation and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by North Korea would come up at the summit and NAM consensus would be reflected in the "Kuala Lumpur Declaration".

The theme of the summit, being held after a gap of four-and-a-half years, is "revitalisation of NAM".

Sibal said many of the recommendations made by India at Cape Town had found favour from the member nations.

Asked about Musharraf's demand for a definition of terrorism by the UN, Sibal said this was only aimed at finding "escape clauses not to give up terrorism".

The Foreign Secretary said India strongly felt that the 115-member grouping must focus on global issues. Any attempt to steer away by bringing intra-NAM conflicts was not in the interest of NAM.

On the demand for a permanent NAM secretariat, he said there was no need to go for new institution building.

Emphasising that NAM's relevance had not been diluted, he said it continued to be a mechanism for developing countries to bargain better with the developed world.

PTI