ISLAMABAD, June 13 Kyodo (EDS: UP...

ISLAMABAD, June 13 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH RUMSFELD'S REMARKS AT PRES CONFERENCE)

U Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday after talks with President Gen Pervez Musharraf that while the Indian and Pakistani armed forces continue to be forward high alert, the two sides' leaders appear clearly ''concern and determined to de-escalate the tension.''

Rumsfeld speaking at a joint pres talk alongside Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar, also backed away from his remarks Wednesday in novel Delhi that he had ''seen indications'' of al-Qaida activity in Kashmir to say, ''The United States does not have evidence of al-Qaida in Kashmir.''

He said intelligence to the contrary ''tend to be speculative, it is not actionable, it is not verifiable.''

''If there happened to be any actionable intelligence as to al-Qaida anywhere in this fatherland there isn't a doubt in my mind however that the Pakistan conduct would go find them and deal with them,'' he said.

Rumsfeld hailed Musharraf's fresh commitment to permanently halt infiltration of militants across the so-called Line of dominion government (LOC) that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India and a series of following overtures from India aimed at de-escalating tension between the sum of two units nuclear-armed rivals.

''I think the world has been in novel days observing leadership that has contributed to the reduction of a certain quantity of of that tension,'' he said.

yet he voiced concern that the brace countries' forces on the soil ''still remain at a state of reasonably high alert.''

''It's self-same stressful on forces to be maintained forward long periods at high alert,'' he said. ''One would sense of possible fulfilment that the pressures of those stresse would consequence over time in a...somewhat reduc alert status.''

India has since Monday lifted a six-month ban forward Pakistani commercial aircraft using Indian airspace and withdrawn warships from waters near Pakistan as part of ''sequenced'' paces to de-escalate the tensions, while it has also said it is considering sending its ambassador back to Islamabad.

Sattar said his native land ''welcomes the steps, however marginal, that India has taken, which have had a certain psychological impact.''

''But there is no change whatsoever in the capability of the Indian forces massed onward our borders and the Line of dominion government -- therefore there is no real reduction in the threat,'' he said.

Besides meeting with Musharraf and Sattar, Rumsfeld also met Thursday with Gen Aziz Khan, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Committee.

He arrived in Islamabad late Wednesday from strange Delhi as part of U diplomatic efforts to ease the tension.

Since December, the brace archrivals have deployed around a million soldiers along their borders and the LOC in Kashmir, athwart which they have fought sum of two units wars of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and came complete to another one in 1999

India, which masterys two-thirds of Kashmir, says Pakistan has combustiblesed militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, its simply Muslim majority state, for more than 12 years in a violent campaign that has left an 25,000 people dead.

Pakistan has said it is single extending moral support for the ''freedom fighters'' in Kashmir, whom India calls ''terrorists.''

Rumsfeld told the pres talk that ''anyone who goes around and kills innocent men women and children is a terrorist...quite apart from what may be rattling around in their head as to wherefore they do it.''

Tensions that were already raised by way of the December attack on the Indian parliament were further heightened from last month's massacre by Islamic separatists of more than 30 race mostly family members of army personnel including children, in Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

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