WASHINGTON, June 27: The United States will support a dialogue between India and Pakistan to promote regional stability but will leave it to the two countries to chart their own course of action, says the Obama administration’s pointsman for South Asia.

“India and Pakistan face common challenge and we will support continuing dialogue to find joint solutions to counter terrorism and to promote regional stability,” Robert O Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told US lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.

The US official noted that on June 16, President Asif Ali Zardari met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Russia.

Such a high-level engagement, he said, was encouraging, particularly after the Mumbai attacks.

“We will continue to support dialogue between Indian and Pakistani leaders. The timing, scope and content of any such dialogue are strictly matters for Pakistani and Indian leaders to decide,” Mr Blake said.

Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama sent a special envoy, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, to New Delhi with a letter for the Indian prime minister. Although contents of the letter were not disclosed, the US media reported that President Obama urged Indian leaders to resume dialogue with Pakistan, disrupted after the Mumbai attacks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to visit India later this summer, and although her visit would focus on strengthening an already strong relationship between Washington and New Delhi, US media reports have indicated that she too would encourage Indian leaders to reengage Pakistan.

Mr Blake also told the hearing that Pakistan needed to move more troops from its border with India to the western parts of the country to fight terrorism.

Expressing satisfaction over the progress in the fight against extremists in the NWFP, Mr Blake noted that some Pakistani troops already had been deployed away from the Pakistan-India border, but said that more units should be shifted.

“We are very encouraged by the progress that has been made in Swat valley,” he said, adding that much more needed to be done by Pakistan in this regard, and that country had the capabilities to undertake that. An important part of that would be to reorient the Pakistani military from its focus on India towards dealing with extremist threats that it was facing, he added.