A day after prime minister Manmohan Singh virtually dubbed Pakistan a terror state, US national security adviser Stephen Hadley also pointed fingers at Islamabad as a problem state.
Hadley was quoted in the
Wall Sreet Journal as saying the biggest foreign policy challenge president-elect Barak Obama will face is the situation in Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s increasingly turbulent border region poses threats not just to the US mission in Afghanistan, but also to India, as evidenced by the recent Mumbai terror attacks, as well as to urban areas of Pakistan itself — and the world beyond,” the WSJ report said.
Officials and analysts in New Delhi are happy that Washington is finally veering round to a view widely held here.
Analysts say it is time for the US and other world powers to get Pakistan to act against terror outfits, which are a danger not just to India and the world but to Pakistan itself. Former premier Benazir Bhutto was killed by homegrown terrorists.
This is something that is worrying New Delhi as it steps up diplomatic efforts to ensure that action is taken. When assistant secretary for state Richard Boucher arrives here from Islamabad on Thursday, the government will explain how important it is for Indian citizens to see results.
The Pakistan foreign office has already said the “information” received from India is being “seriously” examined and followed up. Pakistan has also acknowledged that Mohd Ajmal Amir is its national and the attack was launched from its soil. But the identity of the nine slain terrorists has not been established yet.
Islamabad is under immense pressure to co-operate in the investigation, though the US has not always succeeded in getting the army to crack down on terrorists.
Washington’s weak spot is its dependence on the Pakistan Army to act against the Islamists and pro-Taliban elements. The US has given $10 billion to the Pakistan army in the war on terror. “Yet till today they have not got the killers of Daniel Pearl,’’ analyst Uday Bhaskar said.
