WASHINGTON, Jan 11: US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday urged India to be patient in its demands for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to take more action against terrorists.

Powell said New Delhi should not immediately judge Musharraf’s commitment to fighting terrorism on a speech on the subject the Pakistani president is to make on Saturday.

“Tomorrow is an important day,” said Powell who will travel next week to both India and Pakistan in an effort to cool inflamed tensions between the two nuclear rivals.

But, he said in an interview with wire service reporters, that he had told Indian officials they should not expect instant results from the address.

“You can’t expect every action to be taken at the same time you are giving a speech which is a policy statement, so I’ve been saying to the Indians: ‘Let’s see what President Musharraf says.

“We’ll see what actions are taken at the time of the speech and also after the speech and so don’t judge the speech in and of itself as a total response on the part of President Musharraf.’”

“That’s why it’s important that we continue to have time to pursue in political and diplomatic channels whatever actions the Pakistanis might take.”

In addition to counselling the Indians to be patient, Powell also said he had told New Delhi that Musharraf had already taken some steps to rein in Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants.

“We’ve also pointed out to the Indian government that the Pakistani government has taken a number of actions in recent weeks that should be encouraging to you,” he said, referring to the arrest of extremists and the closure of their offices.

“You have to give him (Musharraf) credit,” Powell said.

Powell said he believed Musharraf would outline plans to tackle militant groups...and said war between the two nations would be “unthinkable.”

“It is unthinkable that we should abandon political and diplomatic track in order to see a conflict break out in the region,” he said, adding that open warfare would deal a heavy blow to the US-led war on terrorism.

“With all the success we have seen in the last four months with respect to the campaign against terrorism in that part of the world, it would be a disaster if this now were fought out on the field of battle,” Powell said. —AFP