New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANS) Former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee Tuesday refuted claims by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that both of them were insulted at their summit in Agra in 2001 and went on to blame the Pakistani strongman for the meeting's collapse.

In a statement, Vajpayee, who was prime minister then, said Musharraf's claims, made in his book "In the Line of Fire", have surprised him.

"No one insulted the general and certainly no one insulted me," said Vajpayee, who continues to take active interest in foreign policy affairs.

The former prime minister revealed for the first time what happened at Agra that led to its abject failure, forcing a red faced Musharraf to head home in visible pain.

"At Agra, during our talks, he (Musharraf) took a stand that the violence that was taking place in Jammu and Kashmir could not be described as 'terrorism'.

"He continued to claim that the bloodshed in the state was nothing but the people's battle for freedom.

"It was this stand of General Musharraf that India just could not accept. And this was responsible for the failure of the Agra summit," Vajpayee said.

Vajpayee's reaction came in wake of news reports based on Musharraf's book released in New York Monday.

"I have seen press reports about Gen Musharraf's book. I am still to see the book. But his reported comments on the failure of our talks at Agra have surprised me," Vajpayee said. "I am issuing this statement to put the record straight."

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader admitted that his "Lahore bus trip" in 1999 was appreciated by all but it yielded no results in terms of normalising relations between India and Pakistan.

"Ever since (our) government was formed in March 1998, establishing normalcy in Indo-Pakistan relations had been a principal item on our agenda," he said.

"But everyone in our government was acutely alive to the fact that there could be no normalcy in Indo-Pakistan relations until cross-border terrorism, which had cost thousands of innocent lives, was ended.

"With this objective in mind, I undertook a bus journey to Lahore to meet my counterpart and thrash out this and other issues in person."

Vajpayee said Musharraf took power after ousting then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, India decided to invite the latter to Agra. Musharraf readily accepted the Indian invitation.

If Musharraf had been willing to accept our position in 2001, the Agra summit would have become successful and the three subsequent years may have proved very valuable to take our initiative forward, Vajpayee said.