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NEW DELHI, Dec 30 (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Sunday he was confident that growing international pressure would force Pakistan to act against militant groups operating from its territory.

In a meeting here with the leaders of all political parties, Vajpayee said the global community was aware of India's anger in the wake of the December 13 attack on its parliament, which New Delhi has blamed on Pakistan-based militant outfits operating at the behest of Pakistani military intelligence.

"I firmly believe this will put sufficient pressure on Pakistan and it will be forced to act against the terrorist groups," Vajpayee was quoted as saying by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan.

During the meeting, Mahajan said all party leaders had agreed that while every effort should be made to avert a war, India was fully prepared for any action should a conflict "be forced upon it".

Military tensions between the South Asian nuclear rivals have soared since December 13, with both sides massing troops along their border and trading tit-for-tat diplomatic sanctions.

Mahajan said opposition leaders had spoken in favour of pursuing diplomatic pressure and added that Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh had unveiled a series of possible further measures.

"What the government is also doing is to put diplomatic pressure, and nothing but taking diplomatic moves for that," he added.

Singh said India would hand Pakistan a list of militants it wants to see arrested.

The foreign minister also told the leaders that India's troop build-up along the border was a "defensive deployment" and not for launching a war with the neighbour.

In separate phone calls Saturday from his Texas ranch to Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, US President George W. Bush urged both leaders to work to reduce tensions in the region.

But he specifically called on Musharraf to "take additional strong and decisive measures to eliminate the extremists who seek to harm India; undermine Pakistan; and provoke a war between India and Pakistan and destabilize the coalition against terrorism", said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.

The all-party meeting was united in rejecting the measures announced so far by Pakistan as inadequate.

Manmohan Singh, senior leader of India's main opposition party Congress, said it was "supportive of all measures taken in government's interest".

"However, there should be maximum scope given for diplomatic measures."

Another opposition leader, Ramprasdad Yadav of the Samajwadi Party said since Pakistan has started acting against terrorist groups, India should exert only diplomatic pressure and not risk becoming isolated from the global communityn by starting a war.

In order to build diplomatic pressure on Islamabad, the meeting decided that delegations including leaders from the government and opposition benches would be sent to various world capitals next month to push India's case against Pakistan.

Mahajan said the political leaders will embark on this mission by the second week of January.

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