15 killed in Kashmir as India stalls on talks

FIFTEEN people were killed during fighting in Kashmir as India kept Pakistan guessing over whether it would join talks to defuse tensions in the region.

As troops traded mortar and heavy machinegun fire across the frontier in the disputed Himalayan region overnight, India's foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, refused to give any assurances about negotiations on the crisis, despite Pakistan arresting several Islamic activists.

Mr Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Abdul Sattar, will attend a regional summit in Nepal on Friday, but sources close to Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said it would not include talks with Pakistan.

Six Hindus were among those killed in separate shootouts in the past 24 hours in Indian-ruled Kashmir, where tensions have been rising since a suicide attack on India's parliament on 13 December. India blamed the attack on two Pakistan-based groups fighting its rule in Jammu and Kashmir.

India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, have massed troops along their border, scaled down diplomatic ties and cut transport links.

Pakistan has accused India of being provocative in continuing its troop build-up. An army official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir said: "It's still highly explosive and dangerous. Any small incident could lead to the situation spiralling out of control." India said the build-up was almost complete and was "purely precautionary".

Despite fears of war, the rivals yesterday renewed a 1991 deal not to attack each other's nuclear facilities.

In a New Year message, Mr Vajpayee said he did not want war and would even consider talks on Kashmir, but only when Pakistan ended crossborder terrorism.

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