"We hope the international community will increase further its efforts considering the hostile postures adopted by India and convince India to see reason and come to the negotiating table for discussions and dialogue," said foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan.

Asked at a news conference whether he thought war was imminent between the nuclear-armed neighbours, he said he was not in the business of "fortune-telling".

Khan's comments came as Indian and Pakistani troops fought a fourth day of artillery duels across the de facto border in the disputed state of Kashmir.

The border skirmishes erupted after India blamed Pakistan-based guerrillas for an attack last Tuesday in Jammu, the Kashmiri winter capital, that killed 35 people, mostly wives and children of soldiers.

At least 10 people have been killed and more than 50 injured on the Pakistani side of the border since Friday, while Indian officials put their own toll at two dead, 23 injured and more than 12,000 people displaced.

President General Pervez Musharraf has called a meeting Wednesday of his cabinet and the National Security Council (NSC), a top decision-making body, to review the escalation of border tensions.

Information Minister Nisar Memon said the president would also consult political leaders "to take the nation into confidence regarding the situation arising out of the recent escalation of tension on the borders".

A government official told AFP that United States Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was also due to arrive here early next month.

Armitage's trip closely follows US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca's visit to Pakistan and India last week in search of ways to avert "dangerous confrontation" between rival nuclear neighbours.

The US has expressed deep concern over the massing of rival forces at their common border.

India has blamed Pakistani militants for the Jammu massacre and on Saturday ordered Pakistan to withdraw its high commissioner (ambassador) from New Delhi.

Pakistan denies the charge and Khan repeated Monday a long-offered invitation to independent observers to monitor the border.

"As far as verification of our claim is concerned, we are ready for deployment of independent international observers on both sides of the Line of Control to see for themselves there is no cross-border activity taking place.

"This is as much as Pakistan can do. We are ready for that, India is not ready for that," he said.

Pakistan denies that it arms or funds Islamic militants in Kashmir but acknowledges it provides moral and diplomatic support to what it describes as an indigenous freedom struggle.

Khan said the Pakistani government was "constantly in touch with the international community in appraising them of the developments".

Asked whether the United States should be more involved, Khan noted that Washington sent Rocca to India and Pakistan "particularly for the purpose of a reduction of tension.

"They have supported what we have been calling for all along -- which is a reduction in tension, bilateral talks and that all outstanding issues between Pakistan and India should be resolved through dialogue."

Khan was asked whether the increasing tensions would affect Pakistan's cooperation in the US-led war on terrorism, perhaps by forcing it to redeploy its forces from the western border with Afghanistan to the eastern border with India.

He said only that "Pakistan is extending its cooperation in the fight against terrorism and is continuing to do so".

Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, has been the cause two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

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