New Delhi: US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived on July 27 on a short visit as part of American efforts to nudge India and Pakistan to resume dialogue and lower tensions but said that he did not expect any breakthrough.

''Ultimately we have to get to dialogue or else we will just be stuck on a plateau which would not serve our interests. We do not want to be back where we were a few months ago, a few months from now,'' he told reporters, accompanying him on the visit to New Delhi and Islamabad.

''I am not expecting a breakthrough yet of the kind we saw a month or so ago. I just want to make sure we are not just stopped and I want to see what both sides might be willing to do to keep going down that escalatory ladder,'' he said.

Powell, who will be holding talks with External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha later on July 27, said that he would hear the perception of both sides on the issue of infiltration, a trend which is ''hard to measure with any level of precision''.

The American Secretary of State, who is on his third visit to India and Pakistan since October, said that he would ask the leadership of the two countries ''how they want to get started with the dialogue".

''I think both sides now recognise the need for a dialogue. It is a question of timing and it is a question of expectations and conditions met. What I will have to do with both Indians and Pakistanis is see when they are comfortable beginning a dialogue,'' he said.

Powell will have meetings with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra on July 28 before emplaning for Pakistan.

Asked when he expected India and Pakistan to resume dialogue, Powell countered it with a question of his own. ''Will it be when the escalation goes down ? Will it be when there is greater assurance that there is no cross-border infiltration? Will it be when elections (in Jammu and Kashmir) are over?"

All these, he said, "Are possibilities that I will explore with the two sides and see if we can even begin talking about talks at some point in the near future.''

Before leaving Washington, Powell said that he would talk about the current tension in the region with Indian and Pakistani leaders. ''There has been some reduction in infiltration across the line of control (LoC) but it is still unfortunately the case that there is violence. There is terrorist violence that takes place,'' he said.

He said that in his conversation with Indians and Pakistanis ''I will see if there are any other actions that can be taken that will reduce the level of violence or the potential for violence and I am sure we will have discussions on the possibility of a dialogue at some point in the future between the two sides that will deal with the question of Kashmir.''

PTI