NEW DELHI, Oct 14: India appeared to have significantly hardened its stance on Monday against western pressure to resume peace talks and also ease a menacing military standoff with Pakistan, as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee returned from a European tour apparently miffed by the nagging pressure.

Defence sources said the Indian army planned to carry out its long-pending war games in Rajasthan next month.

“India has firmly told the United States that there is no question of resumption of dialogue with Pakistan in the foreseeable future as it continues to perpetrate violence in Jammu and Kashmir,” a report said quoting unidentified sources close to Vajpayee.

Press Trust of India said the remarks had also raised doubts about Vajpayee’s travel to Islamabad in January for the Saarc Summit. Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani had hinted at this trouble brewing on Sunday when he told a news conference that it was up to the prime minister to decide if he would go to Islamabad.

In a dispatch from Kashmir, PTI reported small arms and artillery firing between Indian and Pakistani troops along the Line of Control and the working boundary in Jammu and Kashmir where one woman was also injured in mine blast since Sunday evening.

It said Pakistani troops targeted forward Indian posts in Drass sector with artillery fire from 0200 hours forcing Indian forces to retaliate.

Exchange of machine-gun fire between Indian and Pakistani troops was reported in Kupwara sector and small arms fire in Siachen Glacier during Sunday night.

Intermittent exchange of fire between the two sides along the working boundary took place at Kanachak, Panjore, Dub Sudan, Lalyal, Dhera Camp, Nippu, Beli Azmat, Chorgali, Gole Pattan, Chinore Farm, Budhwar, Pital Post, Mehtra Post, Zero Point and Kote Kuba in Jammu dis-trict since Sunday, PTI said.

Quoting highly placed sources about the tough Indian message to the United States, PTI said it was conveyed to US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice when she spoke to her Indian counterpart Brajesh Mishra over telephone in Copenhagen earlier this week.

The US has been nudging India to resume dialogue with Pakistan and statements on this have been coming from Washington more frequently after the satisfactory conduct of the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

“How could the US expect India to start the dialogue if perpetrators of violence in Jammu and Kashmir, aided and abetted from across the borders, continued with their acts of terrorism,” Mishra told Rice while informing her that over 800 lives had been lost ever since the democratic process was initiated in the valley.

When asked if Vajpayee would be visiting Pakistan for the Saarc summit three months from now, the sources said it was “premature” to talk about this since dates for it have not yet been finalized.

Meanwhile, separate reports quoted defence analysts as saying India may pull back some troops from its mountainous Kashmiri frontier with Pakistan to the north while keeping defences high along its western desert border.

Advani announced on Sunday that India’s National Security Council advisory board was to meet on Wednesday to review the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops on India’s volatile borders with Pakistan following an attack last December by gunmen on India’s parliament.

Defence Minister George Fernandes had repeatedly said the troops would remain in Kashmir at least until the end of elections in the Indian zone of the restive Himalayan region.

India Today’s online newspaper said troop reduction along India’s western border looks highly unlikely as the army has planned military exercises in Rajasthan in November to involve thousands of combat troops.

It quoted an army spokesman as saying the army would conduct war games with support from the air force in Rajasthan’s Thar Desert but would remain 90 to 150km from the Pakistan border. “India is planning to conduct the fourth phase of its military exercises code-named Operation Parakram (Bravery) in November for 10 days,” said the spokesman.

“The war games will test some of the army divisions deployed along the border with Pakistan since December. Leave is being sanctioned for soldiers and officers in small batches but they have to report back for duty on the border.”

Upon his return to New Delhi Vajpayee said India would emerge victorious in its determined fight against terrorism, which has assumed a new form.

“A new demon has come in the form of terrorism. But it will be defeated in the same way as the other such demons have been handled,” he said.