Islamabad: The US has said it has taken "seriously" India's assertion that it reserved the right to launch a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan and advised the two countries to ensure that the situation does not "get out of hand".

A senior unnamed US State Department official, quoted by 'Dawn' newspaper, also said the infiltration of militants into Jammu and Kashmir "has not stopped as yet and it is something we have said needs to stop."

About External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha's remarks that India reserved the right to launch a pre-emptive attack against Pakistan just as the US did against Iraq, the official said Washington is "in pretty regular touch with both governments to ensure that the situation does not get out of hand. Threats of war are always something taken seriously."

He said "Attempts to draw parallel between Iraq and Kashmir are overwhelmed by differences between the two situations.

"We recognise the very serious nature of the situation in Kashmir as our recent joint statement with Britain made clear, but the two situations were not comparable," he said.

Elaborating the US point of view, he said, "Iraq invaded, occupied and brutalised Kuwait in 1990." After that the international community came together to drive Iraq out of Kuwait the following year, he said.

"A decade earlier Iraq attacked another neighbour Iran and used chemical weapons against it, and against thousands of its own citizens," he said.

The US official said Washington and its allies had taken action against Iraq only after 12 years of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

"These circumstances, which made the coalition action necessary in Iraq, do not apply in the subcontinent and should not be considered a precedent," he said.

He also assured Pakistan of continued US military sales and economic assistance despite the imposition of sanctions by the Bush administration on a key Pakistani nuclear facility, Kahuta Research Laboratory (KRL).

"The sanctions are only specific to KRL, which does not buy anything from the United States."

Referring to media reports that Pakistan purchased missiles from North Korea as late as last month, the official said he could not verify "the truth in such reports". The sanctions, he said, were "not over transactions in March".

PTI