The G8 powers told Pakistan yesterday to crack down on home-grown terrorists contesting Indian control of Kashmir. They also praised New Delhi's attempts to defuse the deepening regional crisis through diplomatic means.
As both sides shelled each other's positions in the disputed Jammu-Kashmir region - after two days of comparative stability - Pakistan's military spokesman claimed that aggressive deployments by India had now reached a point where it would prove difficult to back off.
But a more positive note emerged last night when Pakistan's military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, announced he was ready to meet the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, at a regional summit in Nepal next week.
"I don't mind meeting with him but you can't clap with one hand," he said. "He [Vajpayee] must show willingness on his side and there will be willingness on our side." Asked whether he was prepared to act against extremist pro-Kashmiri militant groups, Gen Musharraf said: "We understand our responsibility. We know what we have to do."
Diplomats representing the G8 countries - Russia, the US, Canada, Japan and leading EU countries - voiced "serious concern" in Moscow at the confrontation that was triggered by the attack on the Indian parliament on December 13th.
India blames the attack on militants sponsored by Pakistani intelligence - a charge Islamabad denies. The attack left nine Indians and five attackers dead and raised tensions between the region's two nuclear-armed rivals to the point where India has now ordered a general mobilisation for the first time since 1971.
After consulting fellow foreign ministers in Moscow, Mr Jack Straw of Britain reinforced the ministers' collective statement with a sharp warning of his own, urging Gen Musharraf to step up his campaign against what he called complacency and double standards towards "Kashmiri freedom fighters" inside Pakistan itself.
Meanwhile, India ordered 5,000 more villagers to evacuate their homes on the Kashmir front lines and threatened a "decisive battle" to smash Pakistan's fostering of a "proxy war" in Kashmir.
Pakistani officials told the BBC last night they estimated that 95 per cent of India's air force was now deployed in an offensive configuration, together with heavy deployments of ground troops.
Pakistan's military spokesman, Gen Rashid Quereshi, said the nature of the Indian deployment suggested a desire for offensive action, and that India would find it difficult to back down.
Yesterday Mr Straw described the New Delhi attack as "an outrage, not only against India but against the entire democratic world".
But he was careful to couple his condemnation with praise for Gen Musharraf's "very considerable statesmanship" over the latest crisis.
The G8 statement also called on Pakistan "to take further measures against terrorist groups acting on its territory which target India in particular". It was issued at the insistence of the Russians, historic allies of India.
Crossfire on the India-Pakistan border, a build-up of forces on both sides, a continuing war of words, and tit-for-tat diplomatic moves characterised the worsening situation yesterday. Retaliatory firing by Pakistani troops killed a three-year-old child in an Indian border village, police said.
Yesterday, despite both countries' closure of their airspace to the other's airlines, India signalled that Gen Musharraf would be able to overfly India en route to the Nepal summit that gives both sides the opportunity to defuse the crisis.