India, Pak to work together on counter-terrorism measures

ISLAMABAD - India and Pakistan apparently have reiterated their commitment to work together on counter-terrorism measures, judging from the responses given by the two foreign secretaries - Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir.

When asked by ANI to respond to a question on whether during the course of Thursday’s talks, India has set any goal posts, any standards that Pakistan needs to meet to stop cross-border terrorism, or to crack down on the Lashkar-e-Toiba and other such terrorist groups, or whether the issue is still open-ended, Foreign Secretary Rao said all concerns, including terrorism were discussed.

“Prime Minister (Yousuf Raza) Gilani had assured our Prime Minister (Dr. Manmohan Singh) when they met in Thimpu that Pakistan would not allow its soil to be used for terrorist activities against India,” said Rao.

“We believe that this is an important commitment and, what we also believe is that we should jointly work towards our goal of resolving all outstanding issues, and also deal with the threat, dangers and evils of terrorism,” she added.

“We must work to deal with the threat and we must deny terrorist elements any opportunity to derail the process of improving relations between our two countries,” Rao said.

In his response to the above question, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said: “The important thing that we have been discussing, is to adopt mutual means in enhancing counter-terrorism operations. So, I believe that when the interior ministers (of the two countries) are here, they will be able to deal with the subject in more detail.”

He further added: “I hope that the two countries will be able find effective ways to promote cooperation in the shared interests of the two countries, that is, to not allow terrorists the space to act against each other.” by Smita Prakash (ANI)