The South Asian neighbours have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

While they have not waged full-scale war since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998, they have engaged in countless skirmishes along their de facto boundary in the mountains of Kashmir.

Khan reiterated that Pakistan had nothing to do with the bomb attack and said it was ready to take action against anyone found to be behind it. “If you have any actionable intelligence that Pakistanis are involved, give that to us, I guarantee you that we will take action,” Khan said.

India’s Foreign Ministry spurned the offer, saying Islamabad had failed to act on proof given to it about previous attacks.

It said there had been no progress in the Pakistani investigation into the 2008 attacks in Mumbai blamed on another Pakistani Islamist militant group.

“Promises of ‘guaranteed action’ ring hollow given the track record of Pakistan,” the ministry said in a statement.

Pakistan’s military has a long record of nurturing militants as proxies in pursuit of foreign policy objectives, and India has for years accused Islamabad of supporting jihadists waging a nearly 30-year revolt in its only Muslim-majority state.

Muslim Pakistan has long said it only provides moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self-determination, though that has never dispelled India’s conviction of Pakistani support for militants.

Khan said his country had changed. “I am telling you clearly that this is new Pakistan. This is a new mind set, this is new thinking,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Pakistan appealed to the United Nations to intervene, in light of deteriorating security.

“Attributing it to Pakistan even before investigations is absurd,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a letter to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres seeking UN involvement to lower tension.

“It is with a sense of urgency that I draw your attention to the deteriorating security situation in our region resulting from the threat of use of force against Pakistan by India.”

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The United States had told India it supported its right to defend itself against cross-border attacks, India said.

At the same time, Pakistan has a vital role to play in nudging the Afghan Taliban towards peace in Afghanistan in talks with US officials that have raised significant hopes for an end to America’s longest war.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan said an Indian attack on his country would undermine the Afghan peace effort.

“Any attack by India will be affect the stability of the entire region and impact the momentum,” the ambassador, Zahid Nasrullah, told reporters in the Afghan capital.

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A former deputy Afghan defence minister later said Nasrullah’s remarks would anger local government officials, saying it played into fears that the country’s long-running civil war was a proxy for rivalries by regional powers.

“A Kashmir problem should be solved in Kashmir, and not on Afghanistan soil,” Tamim Asey told Reuters. “We don’t want to be your battleground.”

Pakistan’s close ally China urged it and India to ease tension through talks. “China hopes that Pakistan and India can exercise restraint and hold dialogue to achieve a ‘soft landing’ as soon as possible,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman.

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