Islamabad: President Pervez Musharraf on May 8 assured the United States that any terrorist camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) "would be gone tomorrow", while claiming at the same time that there are no such camps.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who held a 90-minute meeting with Musharraf, told reporters that the Pakistan President has given him "absolute assurance that there is nothing happening across the line of control (LoC)".

Armitage said Musharraf told him that there were no militant training camps in PoK and "if there were camps they would be gone tomorrow".

The US Deputy Secretary, who will be visiting New Delhi tomorrow (May 9), said Washington was not carrying any proposal for resolution of the Kashmir issue and denied that it was exerting pressure on both India and Pakistan to resolve it.

Expressing cautious optimism about the fresh peace initiatives by India and Pakistan, he said Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made far-reaching statements in Srinagar, which led to a nascent beginning of a dialogue after Pakistani Premier Mir Zafurullah Jamali spoke to him over phone a few days later.

Armitage, who also held talks with Jamali, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and other senior officials, said that infiltration of militants across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir has come down compared to last year.

"The infiltration and the cross border violence and the lethality are down from this time last year," he said adding but that does not "fill me with great enthusiasm as any suffering is a cause of concern for us all".

PTI