NEW DELHI, June 5: India and Pakistan today failed to agree on a date for peace talks and the Indian army ordered Journalists to leave battle zone in disputed Kashmir where it was Involved in a fierce combat with armed intruders from Pakistan, reports AP.

Pakistan's offer to send Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz to New Delhi on June 7 "is not convenient." said Raminder Singh Jassal, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman in New Delhi.

But he said India would soon suggest alternative dates.

The delay may be an attempt by India to turn the ground situation in its favour and negotiate from a position of strength. But tension between nuclear armed India and Pakistan is expected to exacerbate in coming days.

In Pakistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs Cabinet flayed the Indian crackdown on the insurgents entrenched in the mountain peaks of disputed Kashmir border. Pakistan pledged "full moral, diplomatic and political support" to what it called the Kashmiris fighting for their right of self-determi-

nation from India.

The Indian army sealed entry for civilians into its mountainous battle zone, suggesting an escalation in fighting against the insurgents. Officials said journalists would no longer be able to travel freely on the northern Kargil highway where the fighting was taking place. The area is 700 kilometres (440 miles) north of New Delhi.

Until now, journalists carrying army-issued passes and a few civilian supply trucks were the only nonmilitary traffic allowed through checkpoints into

the area.

"In the past 24 hours, the ground forces have been able to further close in to the positions occupied by the armed intruders." Brig Mohan Bhandari, the military spokesman, told reporters in New Delhi.

For the first time today, the air force took a break in its 1 fl-day-old airstrikes as ground forces were locked in close combat with infiltrators, on the Indian side of Kashmir since last month. "Airstrikes can't take place when the ground assault is imminent." said Group Captain K Rajaram. an Indian air .force spokesman.

But artillery batteries continued to pound the heights seized by the guerillas. India says the infiltrators are Afghan mercenaries and Pakistani soldiers in plainclothes. Pakistan denies its soldiers are involved.

Brig Arun Chopra, an army spokesman in Srinagar which is the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir's state, revised the estimate of the number of infiltrators killed to 200 — half the previous figure. At least 56 Indian soldiers or airmen have been killed in the fighting. Chopra said. Fourteen are missing.