WASHINGTON, Dec 14: Soon after the fall of the Taliban regime three years ago, the United States started urging Pakistan to grant India transit facilities for Afghanistan, diplomatic sources told Dawn.

South Asian diplomats here say the Bush administration has been trying to convince Pakistan to grant India transit facilities since early 2002 but it was never made public.

The first public statement on this issue came on Monday from US ambassador to India David Mulford, who said Washington would like Pakistan to let India use its territory for accessing Afghanistan.

India enjoyed such facilities before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 but the United States and other Western powers encouraged Pakistan to block the access after India supported the Soviet occupation. The Indians now argue that they could do more for Afghanistan's reconstruction if they had transit facilities through Pakistan.

Mr Mulford told a news conference in New Delhi on Monday that when visiting US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, the Indian leader asked Mr Rumsfeld to help secure transit facilities to Afghanistan for India.

"We can do a lot more to help Afghanistan if we are given transit facilities by Pakistan. Transit facilities are a normal right extended by neighbours to each other in civilised societies," Mr Singh reportedly told Mr Rumsfeld.

Mr Mulford said Mr Rumsfeld had reacted 'positively' to the prime minister's remarks and had returned to Washington 'with a positive frame of mind to see if anything can be done'.

"He thought that there is some merit in the idea," the envoy said. In Washington, US officials argue that granting transit facilities would also enhance bilateral trade between India and Pakistan.

They said that calmer relations between the two neighbours were already paying economic dividends. They claimed that bilateral trade between the two countries showed a threefold increase this summer.

The value of trade in April-July rose to $186.3 million from $64.4 million in the same period in 2003 but this is still less than one percent of India's overall exports.

According to official data, the value of India's overall exports in the current fiscal year is expected to reach over $60 billion, while in Pakistan's case it is set to hit more than $12 billion. Officials here hope that trade between India and Pakistan will be boosted further from 2006 when the South Asian Free Trade Area Agreement comes into effect.