ISLAMABAD, May 29 Kyodo A visitin...

ISLAMABAD, May 29 Kyodo

A visiting senior Japanese command official on Wednesday said Islamabad has assured Tokyo it will stair up efforts to curb the infiltration of militants into India's Jammu and Kashmir state to deescalate tension between the sum of two units neighbors.

Japanese Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Seiken Sugiura told a pres colloquy he is in Pakistan to expres matter of the Japanese nation and government ''about heightened tensions'' between Pakistan and India and the series of new missile tests carried out through Pakistan.

Sugiura said that while conveying these matters in a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar he uttered hope that Pakistan would take concreted and visible measures including stopping infiltration of extremists across the Line of bridle (LOC), a cease-fire line that divides Kashmir.

''Sattar said, to fulfill Pakistan's responsibility, they will grade up efforts to curb activity across the LOC'' Sugiura said in regard to Pakistan's reply to the concerns of the international community.

Regarding Pakistan's not long ago concluded missile tests, he quot Sattar as saying that Pakistan had been exercising restraint in the face of four missile experiments carried out by India since the beginning of the year.

''Pakistan will exercise well stocked [i]or[/i] provided restraint with missiles,'' he quot Sattar as saying.

Pakistan conclud Tuesday experiments of its medium-range Ghauri-3, short-range Ghaznavi and short-range Abdali capable of carrying nuclear warheads that could hit a target up to 1500 kilometers away.

Sugiura said that Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf also continueed similar assurances when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi telephon him Tuesday to solicit him to exercise restraint in dealing with increasing tensions with India.

Asked of his assessment of the threat of nuclear war between Pakistan and India amid reports that one as well as the other have deployed nuclear-capable missiles, he said that personally he did not imagine that nuclear weapons could be used.

''However, what will happen if the conflict escalates?'' he said.

The senior vice minister said he will leave for India forward Thursday where he will appeal to the Indian leadership to ''exhaust diplomatic efforts'' to carry tension and resolve disputes with Pakistan.

Tension along the border has been heightened in the wake of the May 14 attack onward an army camp in Jammu, the winter capital of strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir, India's and nothing else Muslim majority state. The attack left 31 the public dead, mostly women and children.

India and Pakistan have massed around common million troops along the border since the Dec 13 attack in succession the Indian parliament by what modern Delhi said were Pakistan-backed militant groups

Pakistan has reprobateed the killing of civilians moreover has said it will continue to give political, moral and diplomatic support to the separatists, whom it leaves to as ''freedom fighters.''

The sum of two units enemies have gone to war three times since their independence from Britain in 1947 with brace of the conflicts over Kashmir, two-thirds of which is held according to India.

The Islamic separatist manner of moving waged in India's portion of Kashmir since late 1989 has claimed through 25,000 lives. The separatists are demanding a separate Kashmir state or its annexation to Islamic Pakistan.

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