WASHINGTON, July 9: Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday he expects to visit South Asia before the end of this month to keep up the pace of the diplomatic drive to cool tensions between nuclear armed India and Pakistan.

Powell’s visit will represent the latest leg of a marathon diplomatic shuttle, which has seen top officials from the United States and its allies arrive in South Asia amid fears the two neighbours could fight a nuclear war.

His announcement comes at a time when tensions between India and Pakistan, which eased somewhat over recent weeks, started to heat up again amid a war of words over Kashmir.

“We have worked very hard to keep this thing from blowing up, boiling over on us,” Powell said at a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing.

“I’ve spent an enormous amount of time on the telephone with the two sides, spoke to (Pakistani) President Musharraf again yesterday, spoke to the new Indian foreign minister on Sunday.

“Deputy Secretary of State Armitage did yeomen work when he went over, Secretary Rumsfeld when he went over, I expect to be visiting there before the end of the month,” Powell said, referring to the two June trips by the US officials.

Powell mounted a personal peace shuttle to South Asia early this year, as tensions between the two sides peaked over an attack on parliament in New Delhi, blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants.

He did not give any dates for his visit, but he is due to travel to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministerial meetings and ASEAN regional forum meeting in Brunei on July 30 and 31.

Tensions between India and Pakistan, always high, have reached boiling point several times in the last eight months, sparking intense US intervention.—AFP