India said yesterday it would press on with its military offensive in northern Kashmir until intruders there were flushed out or withdrew under a US-Pakistan agreement.
"Our military action will continue until the aggressors are returned across the Line of Control or they choose to withdraw on their own," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Troops had recaptured another key peak in the Drass sector after Sunday's success in winning back the strategic Tiger Hill that towers over a key supply road, military officials said.
Air strikes on the positions of the intruders were continuing in Kaksar and Muntho Dhalo, two of the strategic enclaves occupied by hundreds of heavily armed infiltrators who New Delhi says are a mix of Afghan mercenaries and Pakistani army regulars.
The Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, and the US President, Mr Clinton, issued a joint statement in Washington on Sunday that promised "concrete steps" for the restoration of the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the nuclear-capable rivals.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Mr Sartaj Aziz, said yesterday that some progress on the 50-year Kashmir dispute was needed to persuade Muslim militants to withdraw from positions in northern Indian Kashmir.
"If the mujahideen or the freedom fighters, as we call them, are going to be persuaded to withdraw, then they obviously would do so if the world is paying some attention to their concerns and their right of self-determination," Mr Aziz told BBC World Television from Washington.
India said it had been informed by Washington that the US-Pakistan agreement on Kashmir meant the withdrawal of the infiltrators from the Indian side of the disputed military control line.
"Our US interlocutors have informed us that the concrete steps referred to in the statement means withdrawal by Pakistan of their forces from our side of the Line of the Control in the Kargil sector," the foreign ministry spokesman said.
The US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Strobe Talbott had spoken to the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, about the Clinton-Sharif talks, the official said.
Asked if India would consider a ceasefire proposal during the withdrawal, the foreign ministry spokesman said: "There is no such proposal under consideration."