Pakistan Seeks to Reduce Tensions

Pakistan Seeks to Reduce Tensions
December 27, 2008
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan told India on Saturday it did not want war and would use force only if attacked - a move apparently aimed at reducing tensions between the neighbors a day after reports indicated thousands of Pakistani troops were headed for their shared border.

Intelligence officials said Friday that the army was redeploying thousands of troops from the country's fight against militants along the Afghan border to the Indian frontier. Islamabad announced the same day it was canceling all military leave - the latest turn of the screw in the rising tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals following last month's terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.

India has blamed Pakistani militants for the terrifying three-day siege. Pakistan's recently elected civilian government has demanded that India back up the claim with better evidence.

"We don't want to fight, we don't want to have war, we don't want to have aggression with our neighbors," Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in a televised speech.

Still, Gilani said the country's military was "fully prepared" to respond to any Indian aggression.


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