United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf yesterday to try to avert a war with India.
And Pakistani and Indian officials reported four people dying in Kashmir in heavy firing between the two sides.
Rumsfeld, on the second leg of a regional tour, met Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi on Wednesday and praised India for taking constructive steps to defuse the crisis. But Rumsfeld said he was anxious to see tensions lowered further.
In Islamabad, Musharraf was expected to tell Rumsfeld that India has not gone far enough and that the risk of war remained unless India pulls troops back from the border and agrees to talks about the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
India moved hundreds of thousands of troops to the Pakistani border after a December attack on its parliament, which it blamed on Pakistan-backed militants fighting its rule in Kashmir.
After intense Western diplomatic efforts, Pakistan has promised to prevent militants crossing into Indian-held Kashmir to continue a 12-year separatist revolt there.
In return, India has recalled its warships from near Pakistani waters, reopened its airspace to Pakistani flights and named an ambassador to Islamabad to replace one recalled in December.
Despite an easing in tensions, both India and Pakistan say it is up to the other to make the next move.
And, with their armies on the border and the ever-present possibility of another militant attack, the US has thrown its diplomatic might into reducing the risk of a conflict that some fear could escalate into the world's first nuclear war.
The two sides have exchanged almost daily fire across the Line of Control dividing their armies in Kashmir.
India reported yesterday that two officers and a civilian had been killed by Pakistani mortar and heavy machine-gun fire, while Pakistan said a 23-year-old woman was killed on its side of the Line of Control by Indian mortar fire.
India is looking for proof the infiltrations have stopped and is pressing for guarantees that an end to what it calls "cross-border terrorism" will be permanent.
Pakistan wants talks with India to resolve their differences over the mainly Muslim region.
After talking with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah on a visit to Jeddah, Musharraf said on Wednesday: "The situation will remain grim till we disengage on the borders."
(China Daily June 14, 2002)
