Pakistan seeks to reduce tensions after troops move to Indian border

---

ISLAMABAD, Dec 27 (AP): Pakistan told India Saturday it did not want war and would use force only if attacked - a move apparently aimed at reducing tensions between the neighbours a day after reports indicated thousands of Pakistani troops were headed for their shared border.
Intelligence officials said Friday that the army was redeploying thousands of troops from the country's fight against militants along the Afghan border to the Indian frontier. Islamabad announced the same day it was canceling all military leave - the latest turn of the screw in the rising tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals following last month's terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.
India has blamed Pakistani militants for the terrifying three-day siege. Pakistan's recently elected civilian government has demanded that India back up the claim with better evidence.
"We don't want to fight, we don't want to have war, we don't want to have aggression with our neighbors," Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in a televised speech.
Still, Gilani said the country's military was "fully prepared" to respond to any Indian aggression.
Pakistan's latest moves were seen as an indication that it will retaliate if India launches air or missile strikes against militant targets on Pakistani soil - rather than as a signal that a fourth war between the two countries was imminent.
The United States has been trying to ease the burgeoning crisis while also pressing Pakistan to crack down on militants Washington says were likely responsible for the Mumbai attack. The siege left 164 people dead after gunmen targeted 10 sites including two five-star hotels and a Jewish center.
The redeployment of troops away from the Afghan border also raised concerns about the future of the U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials - requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation - said Friday that elements of the army's 14th Infantry Division were being redeployed from the militant hotspot of Waziristan to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border.
The military began the troop movement Thursday and plans to shift a total of 20,000 soldiers - about one-fifth of those in the tribal areas, they said without providing a timeframe. There was no immediate sign of any troop movement Saturday.
An Associated Press reporter in the Dera Ismail Khan district and a witness in Bhakkar, a district bordering Waziristan, saw long lines of military vehicles carrying hundreds of soldiers and equipment away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday.
However, a senior Pakistani security official denied that the troops were being deployed to the Indian border.
Meanwhile: The United States has urged India and Pakistan to avoid an escalation of tensions after Islamabad redeployed troops to their common border and New Delhi reviewed its security options.
The call for calm from the White House came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity on both sides aimed at easing already badly strained ties, one month after the Mumbai attacks, which India has blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
Pakistani officials said Friday the military had moved troops from the tribal areas near Afghanistan, where they are fighting Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, to the eastern border with India as a "minimum security" measure.
The senior security and defence officials described the troop movements as "limited" but the news set off alarm bells in New Delhi, where Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned his military chiefs for a strategy session.
India also advised its nationals to avoid travel to Pakistan, saying it was unsafe for them to be in the country.
In Washington, the White House sought to restore calm between the nuclear-armed neighbours, which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
"US officials are in touch with both the Indians and Pakistanis. We continue to urge both sides to cooperate on the Mumbai investigation as well as counterterrorism in general," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told AFP.
"We also do not want either side to take any unnecessary steps that raise tensions in an already tense situation."
Both Islamabad and New Delhi have said they do not want war, but warn they would act if provoked.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reiterated Friday that Pakistan was a "peace-loving" nation that had no "aggressive designs", but warned it would respond if attacked, the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee meanwhile again called on Pakistan to do more to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned militant group that New Delhi says masterminded the Mumbai attacks, which left 172 people dead.
"Pakistan should not divert attention from the real issue of taking action against terrorists by raising war hysteria," he told reporters in New Delhi.
Mukherjee met Friday with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal, saying he "expected Pakistan to take immediate steps to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism," his office said in a statement.
Islamabad has said it is willing to cooperate with India in investigating the carnage, but says New Delhi has offered no solid proof that Pakistani nationals were involved.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke Friday with his Chinese and Iranian counterparts, who pledged their support in efforts to maintain peace in South Asia, Qureshi's office said in a statement.