WASHINGTON, June 9: India’s Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani warned Pakistan on Monday that it would be defeated in the 14-year-old proxy war in Kashmir the same way it had lost the three previous wars.

“We have been facing this proxy war for the past 14 years. And we know how to deal with it,” said Mr Advani while speaking at a reception in Washington.

Mr Advani’s speech was very different from those of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who has lately been combining his attacks with offers for peace and reminders that neither India nor Pakistan is to benefit from another war.

The deputy prime minister made no peace gestures. Instead, he mocked the suggestion that Pakistan was going to dominate his talks in Washington. “Pakistan is an important issue and it will be discussed during this visit with US officials as well but it would by no means hog the entire limelight.”

Mr Advani arrived in Washington on Sunday for talks that are expected to “focus on terrorism, cross-border infiltration and India’s reservations on deployment of its troops in Iraq,” said a spokesman for the Indian embassy.

US officials said the recent move for improving relations between India and Pakistan was one of the topics that was going to dominate Mr Advani’s talks in Washington.

India and Pakistan have announced a series of confidence- building measures since Mr Vajpayee’s dramatic announcement in April to make a fresh peace bid with Pakistan. Since then the two neighbours have also decided to resume full diplomatic ties and bus and air services.

Earlier, Mr Advani met US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and apprised him of the latest situation in South Asia.

Mr Advani told Mr Rumsfeld that India was positively considering a US request for sending troops to Iraq as part of an international peacekeeping force, the Indian embassy in Washington said.

Mr Advani also met US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Attorney-General John Ashcroft.