Officials said that Ahmadinejad would not be appearing on the first day of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, but was still expected to arrive on Tuesday.

"Not today. Tomorrow," a source in the Iranian delegation to the summit, who requested anonymity, told AFP when asked about Ahmadinejad's attendance.

A Kremlin spokesman was more circumspect, saying that "so far there was no clear information."

Ahmadinejad had initially been scheduled to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday afternoon, Kremlin officials said.

The announcement of Ahmadinejad's landslide election victory over his moderate rival Mir Hossein Mousavi sparked two days of street protests and some of the worst rioting in Tehran in a decade, with one protester reportedly shot dead Monday.

President Hu Jintao of China was among a host of leaders who were present for the opening of the summit in the Russian city, notorious as the scene of the execution of Tsar Nicolas II and his family by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was set up in 1996 as an alternative to NATO that would allow Russia and China to counter US influence in Asia.

Along with China and Russia, the six-nation group also comprises Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Iran currently has observer status.

While Russia is seeking to build bridges with the new administration of US President Barack Obama, the summit, which runs until Tuesday, is expected to emphasise the group's suspicion of the US as a global superpower.

The Kremlin said that the main task would be preparing a communique that would emphasise the importance of "multipolarity" in global diplomacy.

Also holding observer status are India, Mongolia and Pakistan.

An Indian foreign ministry official told AFP that Indian Premier Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari were "likely" to hold face-to-face talks.

In Islamabad, Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit confirmed a meeting was "planned tentatively."

It would be the first time the two have met since last November's Mumbai attacks, which India has blamed on Pakistan-based militants linked to the country's powerful spy service.

Afghanistan is also to be a major focus of the talks with President Hamid Karzai attending as a guest.

Reports have said he will use the occasion to hold a bilateral meeting with his Kyrgyz counterpart Kurmanbek Bakiyev to talk him out of shutting down a US airbase crucial for coalition supplies to Afghanistan.

Medvedev, Karzai and Zardari held joint and bilateral talks late Monday, and vowed to unite in the battle against terrorism.

"Many issues including most serious challenges our nations are facing such as terrorism and crime can only be fought by collective effort," Medvedev said.

"Afghanistan will be your full-fledged partner in this very timely and much needed endeavour," President Karzai said.

"We have common interests, a common history and we can make it a common stand. I think what is missing in this war.... is that the neighbours haven't been involved.... Let's all come together... to make sure it is a safer world," added Pakistan's Zardari.

Pakistani security forces are locked in a seven-week campaign against insurgents in three northwest districts.

The United States has said that Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are hiding out in South Waziristan and other tribal areas, crossing the border into war-torn Afghanistan and plotting attacks on Western targets.

Hu's attendance at the summit kicks off a busy week of diplomacy for the Chinese head of state in Russia.

He will on Tuesday take part in the first official summit of the BRIC group of rapidly-developing nations -- also to be held in Yekaterinburg -- along with the leaders of Brazil and India.

The Chinese leader then embarks on a state visit to Russia from June 16 to 18.

The holding of the summits is also a major boost for the prestige of Yekaterinburg, some 1,420 kilometres (880 miles) east of Moscow in the Ural mountains that divide European Russia from Siberia.

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