Washington: Stressing that the United States had "nuclear flashpoint concerns" with India and Pakistan, American Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has said US and British efforts have helped in "lowering of temperature" in the region.

"The British and the US governments spent a lot of our time and energy trying to lower the temperature. I think that we have been successful, but more importantly the governments in Islamabad and in New Delhi have decided to reason their way through these problems," Armitage said in an interview released by the State Department on June 16.

When asked which region US found more "menacing" – North Korea or Indo-Pakistan – Armitage replied, "We have to resolve both of them at the same time. We have no choice.

"The fact of the matter is we have nuclear concerns in the North Korea. We also have a nuclear flashpoint concerns with India and Pakistan and we have real terrorism concerns in Afghanistan," he said, adding, "We cannot choose between them."

Warning that "it would not be good policy to try to pick one over the other", Armitage said, "If you make a choice you perhaps condemn one of the region to bad fate."

Conceding that it was difficult to concentrate on North Korea, South Asia and Iraq at the same time, Armitage, who gave the interview in Tokyo last week, expressed confidence that the Bush administration was equipped to deal with the situation as it considered Asia "vitally important".

PTI