Musharraf assures US envoy he does not want war

US envoy Richard Armitage said today that Pakistan’s president had assured him that he wants to do everything he can to avoid war with India.

Armitage spoke after meeting President Pervez Musharraf, and added that the US-led military effort against al-Qaida in western Pakistan has not been affected by the crisis over Kashmir.

The Deputy Secretary of State Armitage said that during talks that last almost two hours, Musharraf ‘‘made it clear to me he wants to do everything he can to avoid war, and I think that is a very good basis on which to proceed.’’

‘‘President Musharraf has made it very clear that he is searching for peace, that he won’t be the one to initiate war, and I will be looking for the same type of assurance tomorrow from Delhi,’’ Armitage said.

The nuclear-armed neighbours have roughly one million troops facing each other across the Line of Control in disputed Kashmir.

Recent attacks by Islamic guerillas in the Indian-controlled portion, and tough talking by both sides, have pushed the nations close to the brink of war.

Washington has also expressed concern about the impact of the tensions on efforts against al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives trying to cross Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has already pulled out some troops who have been helping with the effort for possible redeployment to the eastern frontier with India.

‘‘Some elements have moved, but the main activity on the western border of Pakistan seems unaffected in my view,’’ Armitage said.

Armitage, who has a reputation for speaking bluntly, arrived this morning and quickly went into a whirlwind series of meetings with Foreign Secretary Inam Ul Haque, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and Musharraf.

He arrived a day after India made a conciliatory gesture to Pakistan, calling for joint monitoring of the Kashmir frontier - a proposal that Pakistan dismissed as old and unlikely to work.

Armitage said he would discuss that proposal with Indian officials when he flies to new Delhi tomorrow.

‘‘It does not do any good to discuss these things in public,’’ he said.

In phone calls yesterday to Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Bush appealed to both leaders - who have large nuclear arsenals at their disposal - to ‘‘choose the path of diplomacy’’.

An Indian army spokesman reported sporadic gunfire overnight across Kashmir’s Line of Control, but said artillery fell silent before Armitage arrived.

No casualties were reported. The exchanges of artillery and gunfire has lessened this week as international pressure mounted on the two countries.

However, Indian police reported seven people - three soldiers, three insurgents and one civilian - were shot dead today in separate incidents on the Indian side of the disputed Himalayan region.

Six other suspected Islamic insurgents were killed in an attack yesterday on their hide-out in India’s portion of the disputed territory, Indian authorities added.

They were said to be members of the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of more than a dozen guerrilla groups fighting for Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Vajpayee said yesterday India and Pakistan should work together to patrol the border and verify that Islamic militants were no longer crossing into Indian-controlled Kashmir to launch attacks.

It was the first indication in the six-month standoff that India might cooperate with Pakistan to end the Kashmir insurgency and solve the dispute that dates to independence from Britain in 1947. Kashmir has been the flashpoint in two of the three wars between the South Asian rivals.

In London, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Vajpayee and Musharraf each recognise that war is the worst option, so they ‘‘may very well be looking for ways to tamp things down rather than see things escalate’’.

JN Dixit, India’s former foreign secretary and ambassador to Pakistan, said that while war talk has eased in the last week, what everyone feared was another devastating militant attack.

‘‘If there is another major terrorist attack anywhere in India, the fat will be in the fire,’’ Dixit said. ‘‘India will take some visible action on the ground.’’

Vajpayee said 3,000 Islamic militants were being trained in Pakistan-based militant camps, preparing to join the 12-year insurgency. Pakistan has denied its territory was being used to launch attacks in Indian territory.

Britain has strongly urged its nationals to leave India and Pakistan. There are thought to be around 20,000 Britons in India and 700 in Pakistan.