WASHINGTON, Aug 22: US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage resumes his peace mission to the subcontinent on Friday when he arrives in New Delhi from Sri Lanka.

After a day of intensive talks in the Indian capital, he will move forward to Islamabad on Saturday for further talks with the Pakistani officials on US peace efforts.

“He is going to continue our dialogue on both bilateral issues as well as on continuing tensions between the two countries,” a State Department official told Dawn.

He said tensions between India and Pakistan had been moderated significantly but military forces remain mobilized, so it is important to continue to work for pulling back the forces.

The State Department had earlier said that Armitage has a one-point agenda: to reaffirm the U.S. position that as nuclear states, India and Pakistan no longer have the option of going to war for resolving their disputes.

The United States has been engaged in the Subcontinent since Dec. 15, when a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament launched India and Pakistan back on the warpath. The two nuclear rivals have already fought three wars since their independence in 1947, and the international community believes that yet another war could plunge one of the world?s most populous regions into nuclear chaos.

At least seven senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have visited the two neighbouring states this summer. Powell, who has visited the region twice since Dec. 15, urged both India and Pakistan to resume direct talks, a proposal accepted by Islamabad but rejected by New Delhi.

Armitage last visited the Subcontinent in June when the rivals were apparently on the verge of fighting. American media have credited Armitage with preventing the war, although more than 1 million troops still remain on border and the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.

Earlier this week, Indian officials indicated that they would not have much to discuss with Armitage as the United States had failed to make Pakistan fulfil the pledge it made during the official?s previous visit for stopping cross-border movement of militants in Kashmir.

But on Thursday, India’s Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani told journalists in London that Pakistan has ‘partially fulfilled’ its promise to stop the infiltrations.

Earlier Thursday, Pakistan’s deputy foreign minister Inamul Haq assured India that if there was any infiltration of militants it was going on without the knowledge or support of Pakistan.

“We have taken a position that we will not allow anybody across the Line of Control,” he told a group of reporters in Katmandu, Nepal.