NEW DELHI, May 22 (UPI) -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Wednesday told troops to be ready for a decisive war with Pakistan over the conflict in Kashmir.
Speaking to the Indian troops in Kashmir, Vajpayee said, "We must be prepared for sacrifices. Our goal is victory. It's time to wage a decisive battle."
"India is forced to fight a war thrust on it and we will emerge victorious. Let there be no doubt about it," Vajpayee told soldiers at Kupwara, 16 miles from disputed Kashmir border with Pakistan. "Nobody should think that the threshold of our tolerance has no limit."
The Indian premier, who is visiting Kashmir following a series of terrorist raids on military camps in the region, said, "a challenge has been thrown to India and we accept it."
"The world understands that we have been wronged but they are not coming out with their views openly. Hence we have to defend ourselves; we are ready for that," the Press Trust of India quoted Vajpayee as saying.
India and Pakistan, both with nuclear capabilities, have inched toward a military conflict after India blamed terrorist attacks on military camps on Pakistan-based Islamic rebels.
India has warned Islamabad to shut down Pakistan-based militants operating in Indian-administered Kashmir. Islamabad condemned the terrorist attacks but vowed to continue providing moral support to the rebels.
Both nations have lined up more than a million troops on their shared border, with missiles pointed at each other's targets.
India on Wednesday moved its five warships from the eastern naval fleet to join the western naval fleet and bolster naval presence in the Arabian Sea.
Pakistan has called for renewed negotiations with India but said it is ready to meet any military offensive.
Several countries have asked the two nations to show restraint. Washington is sending Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region to try to defuse tension in the region.
Kashmir has been a site of a 13-year-old separatist Islamic uprising in which more than 36,000 people have been killed. Rebels put the toll at 80,000.
India and Pakistan have had a hostile relationship for the past 54 years, ever since their independence from Britain in 1947. They have fought three wars, two over Kashmir region.
They came close to a fourth war in 1999 when they fought a 10-week battle in Kargil hills. The situation was defused when President Clinton asked Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to pull out Pakistani troops from Indian side of Kashmir. More than 1,200 people were killed in that battle.
