ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said in an interview with The Hindu on Monday that the Indian media either did not report his "unequivocal" condemnation of the Mumbai blasts at a speaking event in the United States, or the Indian Government had deliberately used separate remarks by him about the India-Pakistan peace process at the same event as a "peg" to link Islamabad with the tragedy.

Manmohan's statement

Reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that Pakistan would have to fulfil its January 2004 commitment to eliminate terrorism for the peace process to proceed, Mr. Kasuri said Pakistan was already keeping its word, and that India must not doubt Islamabad's sincerity.

"This assurance has come from the highest levels, from the President of Pakistan. There is no reason to doubt that."

He said the Mumbai blasts had to be seen in the context of incidents of violence all over South Asia, and that with different forces at work, all incidents in India could not be blamed on Pakistan.

The Foreign Minister said Pakistan had allowed India to build a fence on the Line of Control, guarded by the Indian security forces precisely because it did not wish to be linked with incidents of terrorism across the border.

Reiterating President Pervez Musharraf's offer of help from Pakistan in the investigations if there was "a definitive lead", the Minister said it was "counterproductive" to point fingers at Islamabad while the investigations were still on.

"When you do something of this nature, you actually influence objective police analysis and police investigation. This is very counterproductive not only to the investigation but also to the process of normalisation in South Asia."

Probe to the end

He said the investigations into the blast had to be pursued to the end, otherwise the "happiest people are those who want to destroy the peace process."

He said the peace process was not merely in the interest of Pakistan, but also of India and of South Asia.

Mr. Kasuri declined to call the postponement of the Foreign Secretary talks a "setback" to the peace process and said he would prefer to describe it as a "negative development."

He was more bitter about the Indian statement condemning the alleged implication in his first statement after the Mumbai blasts linking progress in the peace process to terrorist acts.

An excuse

"The condemnation came at the beginning, and two or three hours later, in the course of various interviews, they asked about the Pakistan-India process. My fear is, to put the two things together without the reference to the unequivocal condemnation means [India] just wanted an excuse to link something to Pakistan, they wanted a peg to hang their coat on. Only a very ingenious lawyer would put that sort of interpretation," he said.

`Our efforts lauded'

He said on his tour of the United States and Europe, he had been complimented on Pakistan's contribution to eliminating terrorism.

"The U.S., European Union and other leading countries are not so stupid as to pay public compliments if they think Pakistan is actually running [militant] training camps albeit not for Afghanistan but Kashmir, because in the ultimate analysis, it all gets linked," he said.

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