WASHINGTON, Dec 31: During separate conversations with US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, Indian and Pakistani leaders agreed to avoid any moves that could escalate tensions between the two neighbours.

“All three leaders... agreed that no one wanted to take any steps that unnecessarily raise tensions,” Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where Mr Bush is vacationing.

The White House said that Mr Bush’s telephone calls were part of his efforts to ease tensions between the two neighbours after the Mumbai terror attacks that left more than 170 people dead.

Speaking separately with President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr Bush “urged both... to cooperate with each other in the Mumbai attack investigation as well as on counter-terrorism in general,” Mr Johndroe said.

The Bush administration has watched with alarm as relations between India and Pakistan started to deteriorate after the Nov 26 terrorist attacks. Mr Bush’s telephone conversation with Mr Zardari was the latest in a flurry of contacts between top US and Indian and Pakistani officials in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, which sparked tensions with India.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also telephoned Mr Zardari and her Indian counterpart and urged them to show restraint after Islamabad acknowledged relocating about 20,000 troops from the Afghan to the Indian border.

Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Mr Zardari, told journalists in Islamabad that the president reiterated to Mr Bush his government’s position “that it would not allow its territory to be used by non-state actors for launching attacks on other countries.”

APP quoted Mr Zardari as telling Mr Bush that “anybody found involved in such attacks from the soil of Pakistan will be dealt with sternly”.

The two leaders discussed the situation in the region and bilateral relations, the statement said.

On Tuesday, Pakistan urged India to defuse tensions, saying that India had taken certain undefined steps that forced Pakistan to redeploy troops.