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Militants want to destabilise peace: Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The Mumbai terror attacks and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement that the attackers came from a “neighbouring country” have spread widespread gloom here. They have spurred fears for the future of India-Pakistan relations, with leaders, officials and analysts urging both sides to work “more aggressively” towards peaceful ties.

Local television channels gave the happenings in Mumbai the maximum coverage through the day, packing in discussions and talks shows on the incident and its implications for the relations between the two countries.

President Asif Ali Zardari telephoned Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday evening and said that militancy and extremism in all its forms and manifestations had to be eliminated and all countries needed to cooperate with each other in this regard, his spokesman Farahtullah Babar said.

Mr. Zardari termed the killings of innocent people “a detestable act” and condemned the attacks “in the strongest possible terms,” his spokesman said.

Mr. Babar told The Hindu that “militants and extremists want to destabilise the peace process and it is in the interests of both countries not to allow this.”

Earlier, in separate messages, both Mr. Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack. The Pakistan president called for “strict measures” to eliminate terrorism and extremism, while Mr. Gilani urged “concerted efforts to make the region a peaceful place.”

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Dawn News from Chandigarh, where he was visiting on Thursday, that he would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday and express condolences on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan. He would also offer all support, assistance and co-operation from Pakistan in tackling the “common enemy” of extremism and terrorism that faced the two countries.

“We need to be calm, we need to be composed and supportive of each other,” Mr. Qureshi said

Responding to a question about Mr. Singh’s assertion that India would take up with its neighbours the use of their territory to launch terrorist attacks against it, Mr. Qureshi cautioned against “jumping to conclusions” and “knee-jerk reactions.”

He also made a reference to the Samjhauta Express firebombing, which the Indian media blamed on militants from across the border, and said the investigations were now taking a completely different direction.

Analysts expressed fears for the gradually improving India-Pakistan relations and warned against allowing relations between the two countries to slide back.

Only on Wednesday, the home secretaries of the two countries issued a confident joint statement after their two-day talks in which they “condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations” and affirmed their resolve to cooperate with each other to combat it.

They further “agreed that terrorism must be prevented and, as directed by the leadership of the two countries at the meeting in New York on 24 September 2008, severe action be taken against any elements involved in terrorist acts.”

Rasul Baksh Rais, who teaches political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, said it would only serve the interests of the terrorists if India and Pakistan let their relations get disrupted on account of this incident.

“If the terrorists are linked directly to the Pakistani government or an intelligence agency, this is the end of the peace process. If they are not linked but are said to have gone from here, even then it will impact negatively on our relations,” Dr. Rais said.

But he also raised the possibility of the involvement of “home-grown Indian groups,” and said the solution lay in greater cooperation between the two countries.

“India has to work with Pakistan, and work with Pakistan much more aggressively for peace. We must not send out the signal to the terrorists that they have succeeded in their design,” he said.

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