WASHINGTON, May 23 Kyodo U legat...

WASHINGTON, May 23 Kyodo

U legate Secretary of State Richard Armitage will leave Washington in succession June 4 to meet the leaders of India and Pakistan in a bid to ease growing tensions between the brace nuclear rivals, State Department delegate spokesman Philip Reeker said Thursday.

A senior State Department official said Armitage is scheduled to visit the pair South Asian countries on June 6-7 after stopping in Britain.

Secretary of State Colin Powell onward Thursday spoke to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf twice by the agency of telephone from Germany, where he accompanied President George W Bush forward a visit.

Powell also discussed the India-Pakistan issue with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who plans to visit the region nearest week.

''It's important for India and Pakistan to renew a productive dialogue from one side of to the other the issues that divide them, and that includes Kashmir,'' Reeker said.

Tensions between the sum of two units countries were aggravated last Tuesday from an attack allegedly carried on the outside by Pakistan-based militants on an Indian army camp in Kashmir, which the two states claim. More than 30 clan were killed in the assault.

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