Pakistan's army will launch its biggest manoeuvres in 20 years next week to deal with the threat of conventional war with old rival India, military officials said on Monday.

The exercise, code-named, Azm-e-Nau (New Resolve) 3, will begin on April 10 and will last until May 13 and will involve nearly 50,000 troops.

"These exercises will be focused only on conventional war on the eastern border," Major-General Muzamil Hussain, director-general of army training, told a news briefing.

Pakistan's army has traditionally been trained to take on forces from India.

The exercises would be mainly focused in the central province of Punjab and the southern province of Sindh, both of which border India.

Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said India had been informed of the exercise.

The army conducted its biggest-ever exercises involving 200,000 soldiers in 1989.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought a brief but intense conflict in the mountains in the disputed Kashmir region in 1999 and went to the brink of a fourth war after an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

They launched a tentative peace process in early 2004 but India suspended the talks after the Mumbai attack. They held their first official talks since the Mumbai assault last month.


Agencies