DHAKA: "Please help us to help yourself," Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan said on Tuesday while calling on India to provide specific information on the Mumbai blasts so that Islamabad could help with the investigation.

Sounding positive after Monday night's meeting with his Indian counterpart Shyam Saran here, Mr. Khan, however, regretted New Delhi "pointing the finger" at Islamabad even when conclusive evidence was not available.

"Convenient scapegoat"

"We reject the [Indian] attitude of having instinctive reactions," Mr. Khan told a press conference. Pakistan could not be a "convenient scapegoat" for India.

Promising cooperation on the basis of specific sharing of information, the Foreign Secretary, however, pointed out that India had not provided Islamabad with any lead on the July 11 blasts. To questions, Mr. Khan said he had a "cordial, positive" meeting with Mr. Saran. The Indian Foreign Secretary reaffirmed New Delhi's commitment to the peace process.

There was, Mr. Khan stressed, no freezing of the peace process. The dialogue route was the only "rational option" available to both sides.

When a Bangladeshi correspondent asked whether differences between India and Pakistan over the Mumbai blasts would affect the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Mr. Khan described the killings as a "wanton act of terrorism." Pointing out that the phenomenon of terrorism affected most parts of the world, he said all sides should take care that mutual cooperation in SAARC and bilateral relations were not affected by acts of terrorism.

"These are two separate things. Why should SAARC suffer due to blasts in Mumbai or Karachi?"

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