Revealing the US tilt towards India in the Kargil row, White House Spokesman P J Crowley said after Clinton's 20-minute telephonic talk with Sharif: "The President basically indicated he did not see how progress could be made on this issue until those forces are withdrawn." Crowley refused to say how Sharif responded to the request saying only "I'll just leave that to the Pakistan government."

He noted, however, that Clinton also called Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterdayand urged him to resume direct talks with Pakistan to halt fighting.

"Both sides need to show restraint because clearly there is a danger of escalation," Crowley said.

He did not detail what more Washington will do to defuse the crisis saying only: "We remain engaged with both governments."

Meanwhile, India remained firm on its position that it will resume talks only after Islamabad withdraws the armed intruders from Kargil. The Indian establishment feels that it is for Pakistan to de-escalate the situation and the possibility of the operations in Kargil being scaled down could arise only if Islamabad called off its armed infiltrators.

``India has never been averse to a dialogue. But Pakistan cannot think that its incursions into Indian territory across the Line of Control (LoC) will be overlooked. An aggression has taken place and it has to be vacated for any meaningful dialogue,'' the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman said.

Buoyed by the response of the international community to the Kargilsituation, reflecting a broad recognition that Pakistan has instigated the crisis by violating the LoC and sending its armed personnel into Indian territory, India has been swift to emphasise that it will not let tensions escalate. This essentially was the message conveyed to Clinton last night.

Vajpayee reiterated India's position that New Delhi has no intention of breaching the LoC. Its objective in Kargil is to evict the Pak-supported intruders who had grabbed Indian territory. India had no intention to let the situation turn into a full-blown war, Vajpayee assured Clinton.

But even while voicing these assurances, India has made it clear that there can be no going back to the Lahore dialogue process, until and unless Pakistan recognises the inviolability of the LoC. Pakistan's attempts to obfuscate the ground reality by hinting that India's intransigence could result in a war have not found many takers.

``We have to realise Pakistan's objective of fudging issues now that Islamabad realises that ithas lost a lot of ground diplomatically,'' MEA officials point out. Ignoring Pakistan's attempts to highlight India's obstinacy to agree to further talks, India is focussed on a single issue: that nothing would be acceptable to New Delhi that would legitimise even a temporary occupation of its territory.