Pakistan's president Asif Zardari is locked in a power struggle with his own army chiefs over his plans to ease tensions with its traditional enemy, India.
According to sources close to Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kiyani, senior officers are alarmed at the president's plans to divert troops and aircraft defending Pakistan's border with India and deploy them in a new offensive against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Their rift emerged after Mr Zadari made a number of speeches earlier this week, in which he said India no longer posed a military threat to Pakistan and that his country's greatest threat came from Islamic guerrillas in its tribal areas along its frontier with Afghanistan. Such militants have waged a campaign of suicide bombings throughout Pakistan's major cities and control large swathes of its tribal areas.
His comments raised hopes of a new thaw in the frosty relationship between India and Pakistan, but were questioned by analysts who said it defied the two nation's experience of three wars. They accused Mr Zardari of yielding to British and American pressure.
According to senior military figures, one Anglo-American gambit to Islamabad was a guarantee that India would not be allowed to attack Pakistan if its forces were redeployed to fight terrorists on its Western border.
Analysts last night said they did not expect President Zardari to win his fight to redeploy the army from the Indian border
Despite signals that India would welcome talks - possibly between their foreign ministers at a meeting of the G8 group of nations in Trieste, Italy, this weekend - New Delhi believes a willingness to deport terrorist suspects like Lashkar-e-taiba leader Hafiz Saeed would be a more meaningful statement.
Lt-Gen Masood said Pakistan's military chiefs firmly believed that there must first be progress in finding a solution to their dispute over the Kashmir region before a better relationship could be considered worth having.
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