Rice heads to India to ease tension with Pakistan

By Sue Pleming

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to New Delhi on Tuesday on an urgent mission to ease tensions between India and Pakistan after last week's attacks in the Indian financial hub Mumbai.

Rice cut short meetings at NATO headquarters in Brussels and dropped two stops from a European tour to go to India where she was to see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other top officials.

Rice said her message to the two nuclear-armed states was to keep open lines of communication and work together to find those behind the three-day rampage of shooting in Mumbai in which 183 people, including six Americans, were killed.

"It underscores the importance of getting to the bottom of what happened, both to bring those perpetrators of this terrible crime to justice and try and prevent further attacks of this kind," Rice told a Brussels news conference before leaving for New Delhi.

"I want to consult with the Indian government further about what we can do to help. I have already noted that everyone should cooperate fully and Pakistan, in particular, needs to cooperate fully and transparently," she added.

Investigators have said the attacks were carried out by militants trained by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which is blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament.

That attack nearly sparked a fourth war between India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons. The two have fought three wars since their 1947 independence from Britain.

A senior State Department official traveling with Rice also said it was likely the perpetrators were "wholly or partially" a group based in Pakistan and Islamabad must follow through on its promises to track them down.

"They have promised to be willing and committed to following up and pursuing it," said the official, who spoke on conditional of anonymity. "We all need to trade information and pursue every possible lead."

DELICATE LINE

Rice will have to walk a delicate line with the Indians, urging them not to stir up regional tensions by aggressive counter-actions but act forcefully enough to enable the prime minister to counter domestic claims he is weak on security.

"What you want to do is to make a response that is going to deal with the problem, first of all, and prevent future attacks, and that is not going to have unintended consequences and, therefore, make the situation worse," Rice said.

The attacks have put India's ruling Congress party coalition into turmoil, with the interior minister resigning and other top politicians from the party offering to quit.

Rice's visit comes amid U.S. fears that if tensions escalate with India, Pakistan could move its forces from the Afghan border toward India and undermine U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan.

"For the moment, both sides have acted in a very wise manner. We have not seen troop movements and the raising of military tensions on the border," said the senior State Department official.