Suspicion over Pakistan’s role in Kabul blast mars SAARC summit
COLOMBO: Accusations that Pakistan helped a militant group bomb India’s embassy in Afghanistan cast a cloud over the eight-nation SAARC summit on Saturday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul and a string of bombings in Indian cities “are gruesome reminders of the barbarity that still finds a place in South Asia... It remains the single biggest threat to our stability,” he said.
Earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said at the start of the two-day summit that “terrorism and its sanctuaries are gaining a greater grip in Pakistan.”
He said terrorists in Pakistan were getting “institutionalised nurturing and support”, and Afghanistan was the worst victim of international terrorism.
The summit is expected to approve an accord on fighting terror.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have heightened amid accusations that members of Pakistan’s intelligence service ISI have aided Islamic militants fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The New York Times reported Friday that US intelligence agencies intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officials and Islamic militants implicating the ISI in the July 7 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed 41 people.
Manmohan Singh asked Pakistan to implement in “letter and spirit” its commitments to end terrorist activities from its soil.
“We are committed to addressing all outstanding issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir, through bilateral discussions. However, improvement in our relations requires an atmosphere that is free from terrorism,” he said in an interview published in a Sri Lankan newspaper on Saturday.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani spoke of the challenges that Pakistan was facing in its tribal areas. He said his government did not wish to go for military action to resolve the problem and its priority was to engage in political dialogue.
Gilani later assured Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Pakistan will investigate the attack on the Indian mission in Kabul. Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters here that Gilani promised to conduct an investigation into New Delhi’s charges that the Pakistani intelligence was to blame for the July 7 suicide bombing at the Kabul mission.
