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India on Monday lashed out at Pakistan, accusing its nuclear rival of sabotaging a seven-nation South Asian summit set for next month in Islamabad by ordering a postponement.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said Pakistan had come in the way of making "substantive progress" in critical regional issues such as trade and economy.

In Islamabad, the Pakistani government blamed India for trying to "sabotage" the meeting by equivocating whether it would attend, saying it was left with "no alternative" but to postpone the summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

It added that new dates would be set after consultation with member countries.

"India has always been committed to SAARC and its process, and it was precisely due to our commitment that we had suggested that substantive progress should take place on various trade and economic issues being discussed," the Indian spokesman said.

"In fact a situation had been reached when every meaningful proposal was being systematically sabotaged by Pakistan," Sarna said.

"Now that Pakistan has announced the postponement of the summit, then it is a choice that they have made," Sarna told a news conference in New Delhi.

India's attack came on the back of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's December 1 stand that he would not attend the now-blighted summit unless cross-border militancy stopped in Kashmir.

"I can consider going to the SAARC summit early next year provided infiltration and cross-border terrorism stops completely in Kashmir," Vajpayee said last week.

India accuses Pakistan of pushing Islamic guerrillas into the Indian-administered zone of Kashmir, where a Muslim rebellion has left more than 37,500 people dead since 1989.

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