India 'Losing Patience' With Pakistan

India warned the United States, Britain and Russia on Friday that it was losing patience with Pakistan in the impasse over Kashmir, as Islamabad said it would conduct "routine" missile tests this weekend.

The international community scrambled to avert a potential war between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors, with a visiting European Union official urging Pakistan to reduce attacks by Muslim militants in Kashmir.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote a letter to President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin stressing that India was running out of patience with Pakistan.

"We have exercised restraint all these months in the face of requests by the international community that we would see a change in Pakistan's attitude. That hasn't happened," Indian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said, paraphrasing Vajpayee's letter.

She said the letter also indicated, "There is a sense of anger in this country and public opinion is unanimously united on the need to bring an end to this."

New Delhi said it was notified by Islamabad that Pakistan intends to test short- and medium-range missiles Saturday through Monday.

"The government of India is not particularly impressed by these missile antics, clearly targeted at the domestic audience in Pakistan," Rao said.

The Bush administration criticized Pakistan on Friday for the planned missile tests.

"We are disappointed in this," a U.S. State Department spokesman said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell called the confrontation between the two South Asian countries perilous. He said the United States would try to coax India and Pakistan to calm down.

"I hope both sides realize they are at a very critical point, and we will get them to step back," Powell said from Moscow, where he was accompanying President Bush on a six-day European trip.

India and Pakistan routinely conduct missile tests and notify each other according to an agreement designed to avoid misunderstandings that might lead to an unintended conflict. However, Pakistan's announcement was ominous given the heightened tensions between the rival neighbors.

In Islamabad, Pakistan's information secretary, Anwar Mahmood, said the missile exercises "are routine tests concerning technical matters."

"We have notified neighboring countries, including India, about these tests," he said. "We have also informed India that these tests have nothing to do with the current situation."

Mahmood did not specify the missiles to be tested.

India and Pakistan have massed about 1 million troops at their frontier. Tension escalated last week after suspected Pakistan-based Islamic militants raided an army camp in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, killing 34 people — mostly soldiers' wives and children.

In the past week, cross-border shelling has killed dozens in Kashmir, which both nations claim. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region.

EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten was in Pakistan on Thursday and in New Delhi on Friday, urging restraint.

He said he told Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that it was "absolutely essential that Pakistan reduce infiltration and terrorist violence in Jammu-Kashmir as a first step toward reducing tensions on the subcontinent," according to Rao. Patten also told Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh that it would be "a most profound miscalculation if Pakistan were to rely on turning on and off the tap of terrorism," she said.

Patten was the first in a string of high-level diplomatic visitors to the region. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was expected next week and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was due soon after.

Rao said that for India to draw back its troops, Pakistan must halt cross-border infiltration of Islamic militants and dismantle their training camps in the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan.

India also demands that Islamabad "destroy the support and financing structures for the terrorist network to show conclusively that it has abandoned its views and promotion of terrorism as an instrument of state policy," she said.

India accuses Pakistan of waging a proxy war for 12 years by promoting Pakistan-based Islamic militants — who New Delhi brands as terrorists — fighting for Indian-controlled Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan. At least 60,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.

Pakistan denies training and arming the rebels, saying it only supports the goals of what it calls "freedom fighters." Islamabad on Friday reiterated its rejection of India's allegations.

"How can India accuse us of sponsoring terrorism when we suffer because of it ourselves?" asked Gen. Rashid Quereshi, spokesman for Musharraf.

He said recent sectarian killings and this month's suicide bombing in Karachi show that Pakistan also has suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. More than 1,000 alleged militants have been arrested since January, Quereshi said.

He said Pakistan might withdraw troops from other places — including the Afghan border and Sierra Leone — and shift them to Kashmir but "a decision has not yet been taken."

Vajpayee left Friday for a holiday in the cooler climes of the northwest Himachal Pradesh state. His office said the prime minister would rest there until Wednesday.

Senior army officials told The Associated Press on Friday that officers had been ordered to exhaust their annual leave before September, after which no leave would be granted.

Defense Minister George Fernandes said earlier this month that India would not launch a military attack against Pakistan until after elections in Jammu-Kashmir state in September.