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NEW YORK, Friday (Reuters) A top Indian foreign ministry official said on Thursday President Pervez Musharraf was not Pakistan's legitimate leader and that the United States might have encouraged him to cling to unelected power.

However Omar Abdullah, in an interview with Reuters, said Musharraf showed a moderate inclination - a rare piece of praise from New Delhi for the Pakistani general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 but has promised national elections and a return to democracy in Oct. 2002.

"We would love to see Gen. Musharraf in the light that the United States sees him, as this great modern-thinking, forward-looking leader, but we've been twice bitten," said Abdullah, the minister of state for external affairs during a visit to New York to attend the World Economic Forum.

New Delhi blames Musharraf for a failed summit called by India last July and an outbreak of fighting in Kashmir in 1999 that brought the two states to the brink of a fourth war.

"President Musharraf is not the legitimate leader of Pakistan, no matter how much the rest of the world and the international community may try to heap legitimacy on him," Abdullah said.

Anxious to avoid complications in its war in Afghanistan, the United States welcomed Musharraf as a new ally when he gambled his political future by turning his back on the Taliban and supported Washington's campaign.

U.S. President George W. Bush gave Musharraf special mention in his State of the Union address Tuesday, saying, "Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf."

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