"There is no question of safe passage to the armed intruders who have committed aggression," an external affairs ministry spokesman told reporters here.

The cabinet committee on security presided over by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee reviewed the situation at Kargil at an hour-long meeting. Cabinet ministers George Fernandes, LK Advani, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha besides the three chief of the armed forces attended it.

To a question why there had been a change in Government's stand on safe passage issue, the spokesman said, "I am just trying to set the record straight" and added that, "The prime minister was misquoted and the defence minister quoted out ofcontext" on it.

As airstrikes by indian air force combat jets continued for the ninth day on Thursday despite a cloud cover in Kargil, army officials in Srinagar claimed that 34 infiltrators had been killed in fierce gunbattles in Batalik, Drass and Mendhar areas in Jammu and Kashmir in last 24 hours. Meanwhile, giving a new twist to the developments in the Kargil sector, Pakistan on Thursday claimed that the line of control (LoC) in the mountainous region is not "clearly demarcated" raising doubts that the infiltrators whom the Indian troops are trying to flush out are in their area.

Commenting on India's assertion that its military action was directed towards flushing out militants from its territory, Pakistan foreign minister Sartaj Aziz said "flush out of where... The line of control is not even demarcated in those areas very clearly. "So I think all this requires proper and thorough discussion," he said on state-run PTV last evening. Stating that "the picture on the ground is not clear", he accusedIndia of "some other plan" on the pretext of pushing back the infiltrators. Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held his first closed door "strategic meeting" with army chief general Pervez Musharraf since the Indian military strikes began on Kargil and Drass sectors nine days back. The meeting, which was also attended by Aziz, defence secretary Iftekhar Ali Khan, foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed and other military top brass, thoroughly discussed the state of "operational preparedness", media reported quoting official sources. Aziz in his interview to PTV also accused India of violating the Lahore declaration signed between Sharif and his Indian counterpart AB Vajpayee, under which, he claimed, India should have informed Pakistan before launching its air strikes. "They never informed us, they crossed the LoC and you saw the two (Indian) planes were found on our side of the line of control," Aziz said. "Now they (India) started artillery shelling. All this is very strong over reaction to asituation that is both nebulous and unclear and instead of clarifying the situation, they have gone telling the whole world that something serious has happened and we are reacting",Aziz said.

The foreign minister also rejected Indian accusation that there was physical involvement of Pakistani troops in Kargil and Drass sectors but said Islamabad was providing "moral, political and diplomatic support" to the "Kashmiri freedom fighters''.