NEW DELHI, Dec 22: India has completed the withdrawal of troops from its border with Pakistan, a defence ministry spokesman said on Sunday, ending a face-off that nearly triggered a war between the nuclear-armed rivals.

“Troop redeployment is complete,” the spokesman said, adding that troops on the border had returned to peacetime locations.

“But some heavy equipment could still be there,” he said.

Pakistan officials reacted with caution to the statement, saying tension with India could only ease if New Delhi were willing to discuss outstanding issues, including Kashmir.

“Tension levels between the two countries will only be lowered when India is willing to talk with Pakistan on many outstanding issues, including the core issue of Kashmir. That is when the situation on the ground will actually change,” presidential spokesman Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi told Reuters.

“They call it redeployment and, yet, they talk of leaving some ‘heavy machinery’ behind. They have done this before: said something else and done something else, so one has to be careful and assess the facts before proceeding,” Qureshi said.

He said Pakistan was aware that India was pulling its troops from the border and would continue to monitor the situation.

Besides, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali has called for talks in an interview published in an Indian weekly on Sunday.

New Delhi and Islamabad massed a million men on their frontier after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for a bloody attack on the Indian parliament last December. A charge Pakistan denies.

The neighbours were on the verge of war in May and June after a bloody militant attack in Indian Kashmir but they stepped back from the brink after hectic diplomatic efforts.

Tension has eased since then and the two countries announced in October they would withdraw troops on their border except in the disputed Kashmir region, at the heart of their long-standing hostility.