New Delhi, July 26 - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister A.K. Antony visited the Amar Jawan Jyoti here Sunday morning and paid homage to the Kargil war martyrs on the 10th anniversary of the armed conflict with Pakistan.

The prime minister laid a wreath at the memorial to the unknown soldier at the India Gate.

'I join the entire nation in paying homage to the martyrs of the Kargil war. They sacrificed their lives in defence of Indian unity and integrity,' the prime minister said.

The prime minister is to head to Visakhapatnam later Sunday to launch the country's first indigenous nuclear powered submarine.

The face-off in the snow-peaked mountains of Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir in the summer of 1999 had brought India and Pakistan virtually to the brink of their fourth full-scale war. An estimated 530 Indian soldiers were killed in two months of fighting before the Pakistanis were pushed back across the international border.