Pakistanis did not show up for dinner with Indians

summit Yesterday late in the evening all participants of the Asian summit arrived in Alma-Ata. The last to arrive was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kommersant special correspondent ANDREY KOLESNIKOV reports from the capital of Kazakhstan.
The summit is attended by 15 states: Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, as well as the Palestinian National Authority. The Kazakhstan press service notes with satisfaction that the total area of the participating states is 390 million km2 with a population of 2.8 billion people. This is about half the world's population.
Until the last moment, the representativeness of the forum was in question. The Chinese thought for a long time whether to go. As a result, the plane of Chinese President Jiang Zemin was one of the first to land in Almaty. And a meeting with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai has been added to President Putin's work schedule.
There were still, of course, doubts about India and Pakistan. But everyone arrived. The day before yesterday there was even supposed to be a joint dinner between the Indian and Pakistani preparatory groups, as well as journalists from these two countries, in the restaurant of the Kazakhstan Hotel. The waiters were setting tables for 150 people: 100 Pakistanis and 50 Indians. I was afraid for the waiters; those who were in the know advised them to take care of themselves, the waiters vaguely replied that they had already taken care of everything. Dinner was to take place late in the evening. The next morning, the waiters, in response to the anxious questions of members of other interested delegations whether everything had worked out, answered that yes, because the Pakistanis did not come. And the Indians were all 50 like a bayonet and thus won at least a small but important war. They ate, they say, for three. But still a lot of food was lost.
Other materials about the summit - on page 9

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 94 dated 06/04/2002, page 1

Authors:

Andrey Kolesnikov

Themes:

Andrey Kolesnikov about Vladimir Putin

Food went missing in Almaty