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BANGALORE, Jan 7, (AFP) - Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said Monday there was no change in the military situation along the Indo-Pakistan border following a South Asian summit.

"Any hope from the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit has been belied," Fernandes told reporters on the sidelines of a business summit in Bangalore.

"There is no qualitative change in the border situation."

But the defence minister said diplomatic efforts were still on to defuse the situation and ruled out strikes against militant camps across the de facto Line of Control, which separates India and Pakistan.

When asked about possible attacks against camps, he replied: "No surgical strikes."

India and Pakistan have massed troops on their border in the wake of last month's attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi, which left 14 people dead.

India has blamed the attack on two Pakistan-based militant groups and demanded that Islamabad crack down on all militant outfits it identifies as participating in "cross-border terrorism".

Pakistan denies all India's allegations of sponsoring terrorism and argues the separatist movement in Indian Kashmir is a freedom struggle for Kashmiri self-determination.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had a 15-minute meeting on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Kathmandu over the weekend.

But India Monday rejected any immediate prospect of dialogue with Pakistan, saying Islamabad had shown no sign of reversing its stance on terrorism.

"We are fighting a proxy war (in Kashmir)," Fernandes said.

"In some parts of our shared border, Indian and Pakistani troops are separated by 150 yards (metres) and in some cases they are in an eyeball to eyeball situation."

However, the defence minister said the situation would not spiral out of control into a full-blown military flashpoint by accident because Indian troops were "very disciplined".

"This is not a flashpoint situation... at the moment our men are guarding the frontlines and so is Pakistan," Fernandes said.

Six Indian and Pakistani frontline troops were killed Monday and three civilians wounded in an intense exchange of mortar shells along the disputed Kashmir border, Indian officials said.

Indian Lieutenant Colonel H.S. Oberoi said the clashes took place around the border district of Poonch, some 240 kilometres (149 miles) south of Jammu, the winter capital of Indian Kashmir.

Other officials said the rival armies fired more than 1,500 mortar shells at each other.

The cross-border shelling came a day after India said it had downed a Pakistani spy drone that had intruded into Indian airspace. Islamabad denied the claims.

The defence minister also hinted at the possibility of increasing the country's defence budget for the fiscal year ending March 2003 to be tabled in parliament next month.

"There is a proxy war on and also modernisation is important," he said.

During the last fiscal year India hiked defence spending by 13.8 percent to 620 billion rupees (13.2 billion dollars). 

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