NEW DELHI– British Prime Minister Gordon Brown meets Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh Sunday in the latest bid by global powers to ease the pressure between India and Pakistan after last month's Mumbai attacks.

Brown arrived in New Delhi late Saturday ahead of talks with Singh scheduled for 8:30 am local time (0300 GMT) Sunday, an AFP correspondent travelling with him said.

A total of 172 people died when gunmen ran riot in India's financial capital last month, leading to a 60-hour siege in which hundreds of others of terrified locals and tourists were caught up.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have since come close to breaking point, raising fears that the nuclear-armed neighbours could launch their fourth war since independence from Britain in 1947.

Britain has previously urged India and Pakistan, whose long-running dispute over the fate of Kashmir is a fault line of geopolitical significance, to work together in the wake of the devastation.

Brown's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said earlier this month that "violent extremism is a threat to the very integrity of both of those countries."

Britain is also urging the two nations to keep working towards a more friendly relationship.

The British prime minister's visit follows trips by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose country counts Pakistan as a key ally in its "war on terror", and her deputy John Negroponte to the region since the attacks.

India says the Mumbai atrocities were planned in Pakistan, with Singh labelling Pakistan "the epicentre of terrorism."

It has ruled out military action against Pakistan but says its neighbour needs to do more to combat militancy on its turf.

On Saturday, Singh applied fresh pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamic militants, saying it had a "moral duty" to combat terrorism.

Under intense international pressure, Pakistan says it has arrested two leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamist group which India claims helped to finance the assault and train the attackers.

It has also hit one of the country's biggest charities, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is widely considered to be the political arm of LeT, and placed its leader Hafiz Saeed, who also founded LeT, under house arrest.

The group's assets were also frozen after it was listed by the United Nations as a terror group.

Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said Friday the government had no choice but to act on the UN ruling. "Had we not implemented the resolution we would have been declared a terrorist state," he said.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said his country is committed to catching and punishing anyone involved in the atrocities.

But he added that accusations of Pakistani complicity in the attacks complicated the situation and urged India to "pause and take a breath."