WASHINGTON, June 4: With two-high level US missions poised to be in Pakistan and India in the next few days, it is still unclear whether American officials have a definite game plan in mind to de-escalate and bring the two countries to the negotiating table.

There has been a gradual upgrading of US efforts since Indo-Pakistan tensions reached boiling point from the level of Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, besides frequent telephone contacts between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Indian and Pakistani leaders. But no one here is prepared to comment on how these various efforts differ from one another.

Although in remarks to CNN, Mr Armitage seemed ready to accord almost superpower status to India, he asked New Delhi to behave responsibly. According to him, while the US would like to hear again a reiteration from President Musharraf of the fact that nothing is moving across the Line of Control and that this is visible both to the United States and India, India should realize the “great responsibility that comes with being in the superpower club. India is about to join the world on that superpower stage, and I hope that she can restrain herself and act very responsibly.”

Despite Mr Armitage’s superpower comment, there appears to be greater stress here in official statements in the past few days on India taking steps to reciprocate once it is established that Pakistan has ordered measures to prevent what is called cross-border infiltration.

For instance, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Mr Sean McCormack, told foreign journalists on Monday afternoon that the US wanted both sides to be “reasonable and logical, to lower the temperature”. And then Washington would want to assess President Musharraf’s stated position that he has “stopped the infiltration, that he’s doing everything he can, that there’s no infiltration across the Line of Control. And then in return, India could begin some kind of de-escalatory step that would be visible to Pakistan. This is going to take both sides making a concerted effort in terms of leadership to get this tension down.”

The US strategy appears to be that since it has now succeeded in extracting public promises from Pakistan on ending cross-border activity, it can now more openly press India to take matching steps and wind down its overbearing military presence on the borders.

Defining the object of his mission, Mr Armitage, who is due in Pakistan on Thursday, says he is following up on British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s visit, “and we’ll see if we can move the ball down the field a little bit from where Mr Straw left it.”

Asked by a reporter if he had any comprehensive plan in mind, Mr Armitage said if there was such a plan, “I think it should be best shared both with President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee. I think right now it’s a little soon for a comprehensive plan. We just need to try to get to a step-by-step situation where we can bring down the tensions.”