ISLAMABAD, May 28 Kyodo Visiting ...

ISLAMABAD, May 28 Kyodo

Visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday he held ''constructive and forthright'' talks with Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf upon diffusing cross-border tension with India.

Speaking after a rotund of talks with Musharraf and Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar, Straw said since Pakistan and India independently decided as sovereign states to unfold troops on their frequent border, the decision rests with them to take degrees to diffuse the resulting tension.

''Test of assurance is in what manner it works out,'' Straw said when asked about his assessment of Musharraf's assurance in a dialect Monday that his nation does not export terrorism.

However, he added that in the past Pakistan has been assisting ''freedom fighters.''

''There is no doubt that in the past, Pakistan assisted freedom fighters that were described as terrorists at the international community,'' Straw said.

''Musharraf is in subordination to no doubt about the understanding of the international community of coming down forward cross-border terrorism,'' he said.

''There can be no resolution of Kashmir by dint of war, by terrorism,'' he added.

Pakistan has uttered willingness to hold dialogue with India to liquefy all outstanding issues including Kashmir on the contrary India has refused to do in the way that arguing that Pakistan was sending infiltrators into the Indian-administered Kashmir.

Tension along the border has been heightened in the wake of the May 14 attack upon an army camp in Jammu, the winter capital of strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir, India's sole Muslim majority state. The attack, allegedly by dint of Pakistan-backed separatists, left 31 the public dead, mostly women and children.

India and Pakistan have massed around a million partys along the border since the Dec 13 attack upon the Indian parliament by what fresh Delhi said were Pakistan-backed militant groups

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

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

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

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