WASHINGTON, Dec 31: Pakistan’s new move against the Lashkar-i-Taiba and India’s favourable reaction to the development have been interpreted here as signs indicating a small thaw in the fiercely frosty relations between the two countries.

Pakistani authorities were reported to have detained the Lashkar’s chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, on Sunday, and Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh was quoted on Monday as saying in New Delhi that it was a step in the right direction.

The head of the Jaish-i-Mohammad, Maulana Masood Azhar, is already in detention, and Pakistan has also blocked the finances of both the Jaish and the Lashkar. The two organizations have been accused by India of being reponsible for what it calls “terrorist” activities, including the Dec 11 attack on the parliament building in New Delhi, an attack that was strongly condemned by Islamabad. Pakistan has stressed that it had initiated action against extremist elements before the Dec 11 attack.

The latest developments were extensively reported in the US media on Monday, and while no official reaction was available till this story was filed, the feeling here was that Pakistan and India might have taken a tentative step back from the building confrontation on their borders. At the same time, military analysts pointed out that both countries had massed troops and weapons along the LoC and the international boundary and warned of the law of unintended consequences when a miscalculation could set off a conflict.

There were also reports that the Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers might meet in Kathmandu on the sidelines of this week’s Saarc summit, but it remained doubtful if President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who would also both be in the Nepalese capital for the summit, would also agree to talk. The two leaders will be in the same conference room, but, as a CNN reporter said on Monday, no one knew which way they would be looking.

The United States has been closely watching the course of the latest confrontation in South Asia both for its dangerously destabilizing potential and for its impact on the military campaign in Afghanistan.

President George Bush had telephoned Gen Musharraf and Mr Vajpayee on Saturday and urged them to act with restraint. Commentators in Washington have left no doubt that India’s actions since the Dec 11 attacks are meant to force the US to put greater pressure on Pakistan to take action against militant organizations with alleged links to the Kashmir freedom movement.

New Delhi was on Monday said to be prepared to hand over a list of alleged terrorists to Pakistan.