ISLAMABAD, June 11: Diplomatic sources on Tuesday described the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to New Delhi and Islamabad as an attempt to push India to do more to de-escalate the tension and to assess the impact of military standoff between India and Pakistan on the US-led anti-terror campaign against Al Qaeda.

These sources said Mr Rumsfeld would attempt to make India and Pakistan agree on measures that could ensure easing of the tension along Pakistan’s eastern borders so that Pakistan troops could return to their joint operations against the Al Qaeda on the country’s western frontiers.

“The defence secretary’s visit is an expression of President Bush’s decision to put US diplomacy into high gear to defuse tension between the two nuclear armed rivals,” said a Washington- based diplomatic source, adding that Mr Rumsfeld was likely to push India to take concrete measures showing that Indian belligerence of the recent past was meant to curb infiltration of militant from Pakistan and not to impose a war on the region.

“The US is convinced that Pakistan has taken a credible first step, and the ball is now in India’s court to match Pakistan’s initiative,” said another Islamabad-based diplomat, suggesting that the credibility of Pakistan’s claim of sealing the line of control along Indian-occupied Kashmir was beyond any doubt.

The US authorities have been repeatedly informed by Pakistan in the few days preceding Mr Rumsfeld’s visit to the region that the Indian moves so far have at best been “cosmetic”. Pakistan has conveyed to the Bush administration that the threat of war cannot be ruled out unless India starts to pull its forces back from its borders with Pakistan. Diplomatic sources said Pakistan had made specific reference in this regard to the British foreign secretary’s remark that India was moving its warships back to their peace-time positions, but India had yet to confirm such an intention.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw informed the House of Commons after his telephonic conversation with his Indian counterpart Jaswant Singh on Monday that the “western and eastern Indian fleets were returning to port.”

India’s announcement to lift air ban on Pakistan aircraft over Indian territory on the eve of Mr Rumsfeld’s peace mission was welcomed cautiously by Pakistan. “It is a step in the right direction but a lot more needs to be done,” said the statement issued by Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman on Monday.

Mr Rumsfeld will arrive here on Wednesday from New Delhi, almost a week after US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visited the region and managed a breakthrough on the diplomatic front.

With massive deployment of forces along the borders still, the thrust of the Rumsfeld mission will be reduction of military tensions between the two subcontinent rivals.

President Pervez Musharraf warned on Monday that as long as the forces remained deployed on the borders “the danger is not over”.