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US ambassador Nancy Powell urged the Pakistani government Thursday to live up to its promises to stop Islamic guerrillas crossing into Indian-administered Kashmir, where the death toll from a bloody 14-year insurgency continues to claim lives.

"The government of Pakistan must ensure its pledges are implemented to prevent infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC)," Powell said in unusually harsh remarks during an address to businessmen in the commercial capital Karachi.

Islamabad must also ensure "the end of the use of Pakistan as a platform for terrorism," Powell said during a lunch hosted by the American Business Council of Pakistan.

Pakistan is under renewed pressure to stamp out militant training camps and rebel incursions across the LoC, with India claiming frequent captures of rebels who have crossed from Pakistan and Washington refusing to back Islamabad's claims since June that incursions had stopped.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told top US diplomats during the peak of tensions with India in June that he would permanently halt the flow of militants across the LoC, the ceasefire line running between the Indian and Pakistani controlled zones of the disputed state.

Powell's remarks echo those of her counterpart in New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, who said Sunday that Washington was pushing Musharraf to halt the flow of rebels and "end permanently terrorist infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir."

Reacting angrily to the envoy's statement, Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed asked the United States to urge India to come to the negotiating table to resolve all outstanding issues between the two South Asian neighbours.

"The world knows and Nancy Powell herself knows that we are one of the top supporters of anti-terrorism and we want that there should be peace all over the world," Ahmed told state television.

"We believe the Kashmiri people be given the right of self-determination as per UN resolutions."

"I must say the USA should intervene and try to pressure India to sit across the table and resolve all outstanding issues, including the Kashmir issue."

Kashmiri militants also rejected allegations of cross border movement in the disputed Himalayan region.

"We have said this earlier and we repeat it today that there is no infiltration into (Indian) occupied Kashmir from Pakistan," said Salim Hashmi, spokesman for Hizbul Mujahideen which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

"Let it also be clear to Ms Powell that the armed struggle in Kashmir is not terrorism," Hashmi told AFP, calling it a movement for Kashmiris' right to self rule.

The rebel incursions are at the heart of South Asian tensions over Kashmir, which hit new heights in December 2001 with a deadly assault on India's parliament which triggered a 10-month mobilisation of one million Indian and Pakistani troops on their common border.

Rebels have been waging an insurgency against Indian rule since 1989. New Delhi puts the death toll at 37,500 while Islamabad says 80,000 people have been killed.

India accuses Pakistan of arming, financing and training the fighters on its soil. Pakistan rejects the charges, saying it provides only diplomatic and moral support to what it calls a "freedom struggle".

Pakistan accuses Indian troops of brutally repressing Kashmiri Muslims, raping Kashmiri women, of torture and arbitrary arrests.

Musharraf's pledge is seen as the crucial step that pulled the foes back from the brink of a war many feared would go nuclear.

Powell said international lobbying, which swung into full gear in May and June to avert war, was "no substitute for India and Pakistan working seriously to narrow the differences and redefine their relationship."

"I cannot overstate the importance of all parties working to end the culture of violence that afflicts Kashmir," she said. 

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