NEW DELHI, Feb 26: The United States regards defusing the current military escalation between India and Pakistan as its most important foreign policy objective after the Dec 13 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament triggered the standoff with its attendant nuclear dimensions, US Ambassador in New Delhi Robert Blackwill said on Tuesday.

Blackwill’s remarks came as New Delhi prepared to send a senior government minister, for the first time since the crisis erupted, to Islamabad early next month for a regional meeting of Saarc information ministers.

In a possibly related development Indian officials were reported to be ready to consider any Pakistani proposal for an extradition treaty between the two countries as a prelude to meeting New Delhi’s request to hand over 20 alleged terrorists and criminals from Pakistan.

In remarks to set the backdrop to a short visit to New Delhi on Wednesday by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a senior British official was quoted as saying the two sides would discuss India-Pakistan relations too along with their other concerns including next month’s CHOGM summit in Australia.

“No other international problem has ranked higher in the administration’s foreign policy priorities,” Blackwill said at a discussion on India-US relations in New Delhi. “As the crisis recedes, we hope for an early resumption of direct talks between India and Pakistan on all the issues in their bilateral relationship,” he said.

Blackwill praised President Pervez Musharraf’s Jan 12 declaration of war against terrorist groups in his country and expressed the hope that India too would benefit from the expected curbing of cross-border raids by militants.

The Press Trust of India quoted a senior British official as saying that Straw, whose visit will coincide with the presence in New Delhi of Afghanistan interim leader Hamid Karzai, would discuss with Indian officials developments in Kabul, the Maoist violence in Nepal and CHOGM.

The unidentified official was quoted by PTI as saying that Britain agreed with New Delhi’s stand on cross-border terrorism “that it would go by the situation on the ground before taking any initiative to resume the stalled dialogue.”

On the issue of whether the UK would give any suggestion on resolving the Kashmir issue, the official said Britain was “not in the business of providing prescriptions or solutions” and made it clear that cessation of terrorism would be an important input.

Britain was of the view that as many strands of Kashmiri opinion as possible should participate in the coming assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir and that New Delhi should hold a dialogue with Kashmiri groups to bring them back into the mainstream, PTI said.

In an interview published in a Pakistani newspaper, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar was quoted as saying that a bilateral treaty could be negotiated between the two countries under which neither would provide refuge to criminals from each other’s country. As and when the two sides resume talks, the framework can be decided, he added.

Meanwhile India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said, as a policy, she would not react to media reports. “In any case, I have not seen the report myself. Secondly, India would react to such overtures only after Pakistan sends a formal intimation through its High Commission,” she added.

Sattar, in his interview, said: “The policy not to harbour criminals should be made part of a bilateral treaty after the resumption of talks between the two countries.”

Interestingly, Sattar has termed the list of 20 criminals and terrorists “that India seeks to extradite from Pakistan” “fictitious” as it contained names of the people who have been involved in crimes long before the Dec 13 attack on Parliament.

On the prevailing tension between India and Pakistan, Sattar was quoted as saying: “Mutual friends worked behind the scenes to bring it down.”

Indian Information Minister Sushma Swaraj is due to be in Islamabad for the Saarc meeting beginning on March 7.