WASHINGTON, Jan 13: President George W. Bush followed up his welcome of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s speech by telephoning the Pakistan leader on Sunday to thank him for his pledge to take action against extremism.

Mr Bush also rang Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to discuss the Musharraf speech and to urge continuation of peace efforts. Both leaders were said by the White House to have agreed to work to reduce tensions. The conversations with the two leaders lasted about five minutes each.

In a statement released on Saturday, Mr Bush had praised President Musharraf’s “firm decision to stand against terrorism and extremism and his commitment to the principle that no person or organization will be allowed to indulge in terrorism as a means to further its cause”.

President Bush also applauded the Pakistani leader’s “vision of Pakistan as a progressive and modern state and his strong efforts to promote education and a better economic future for his people”.

The White House statement had added: “Reaffirming Pakistan’s role as a front-line state in the coalition against global terrorism, President Musharraf unequivocally rejected terrorism, pledging to take action against any Pakistani organization, group or individual involved in terrorism within or outside Pakistan. He clearly stated that the solution to Kashmir lies in peaceful means and dialogue. President Musharraf banned four (five) extremist organizations, including the two that have been accused of participating in the attack on India’s parliament — Lashkar-i- Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad.

“President Bush welcomes President Musharraf’s condemnation of the attacks on the Indian parliament and the Srinagar legislature as terrorist acts and his calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.”

Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who leaves on Tuesday for a visit to Pakistan and India, had also warmly welcomed Gen Musharraf’s speech and said, pointedly, that he thought it provided a basis for resolution of subcontinental tensions through diplomatic and peaceful means.

On Sunday, two leading senators who have just completed a visit to the region added their voices to the welcome generally accorded to Gen Musharraf’s speech. In CBS’s Face the Nation programme, Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was Mr Al Gore’s running mate on the Democratic ticket during the 2000 presidential election, said the general had made an important statement that put him squarely on the side of the moderates, and he hoped that India and Pakistan would now pull back from confrontation.

Republican Senator John McCain urged India to show patience and hoped that both India and Pakistan would have the good sense to resist domestic political pressures. He said the US would now wait to see how Gen Musharraf cracked down on extremists.

Musharraf’s speech was given wide coverage in the American press on Sunday. Writing in The New York Times from Islamabad, John Burns said Gen Musharraf had “essentially given himself the task of redefining Pakistan’s sense of itself after two decades of drift into lawlessness and violence”. Facing current challenges “essentially alone,” the general struck a balance, particularly in remarks addressed to India, between conciliation and “brusque warnings of Pakistan’s readiness to defend itself”.

Mr Burns commented that the next few days would show whether India’s leaders would see enough in Gen Musharraf’s remarks to step back from war, or they would “take umbrage at his attempt to turn the terrorism issue back on them”.

A report in The Washington Post quoted a senior Western diplomat in New Delhi as saying that the speech would likely reduce tensions between India and Pakistan, at least for the immediate future.

“India cannot now, in front of the world, take military action against Pakistan without first giving him (Musharraf) a chance to show he is serious about eliminating terrorist organizations,” the diplomat said.

AFP ADDS: US President George W. Bush called Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Sunday to say he “appreciated” Delhi’s response to Islamabad’s pledge to crackdown on religious extremists.

Mr Bush said in a telephone call that he “appreciated India’s response” to President Pervez Musharraf’s speech, a spokesman for Mr Vajpayee said.

“Bush (also) assured Vajpayee that he would continue to work with India to counter terrorism,” the spokesman said, adding the US president’s call had lasted eight minutes.

Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh on Gen Musharraf’s announcements.

Mr Singh also spoke to his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov on the current security situation in South Asia.