ISLAMABAD: Pakistan views the anti-terror joint mechanism that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf agreed to set up as a positive development for the peace process, an official said on Tuesday, while others said it was a workable idea despite the history of hostility between the two countries and might even help reduce mistrust.

Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said it would help prevent acts of terror in both India and Pakistan and could prove as useful as Islamabad's arrangements with other countries.

Describing the agreement as a "positive" development, the spokeswoman said while the precise details of the arrangement were yet to be worked out, and its implications were not clear in its entirety, "I presume the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior Ministry and the [Indian] Home Ministry can be the channels of this mechanism." If one country wanted to convey to the other "some information," it could be routed through this mechanism.

"Pakistan has such mechanisms with a number of countries and these are working well, and we hope that whatever its shape, this will also be useful," she said.

Lieutenant-General (retd.) Asad Durrani, former head of Military Intelligence and the Inter-Services Intelligence, said it was a "good idea" even between two hostile countries and their inimical security apparatuses.

He laughed off Indian scepticism about how two mutually opposed intelligence agencies could even think of co-operation, especially as the Indian security establishment viewed its Pakistani counterpart as the main sponsor of terrorism in India.

"Throughout the Cold War, two agencies that were not only co-operating but also helped defuse crises were KGB and CIA. We've got to get sensible about this. In our case, the problem has to be solved by us, not by CIA, FBI or Mossad. And this is the only way to do it."

Pitfalls

All information would never be shared, he said and pointed to other pitfalls such as blaming each other for not co-operating enough and disagreements "because this is such an amorphous business," he said. "Trust is a long way off, but at least some confidence can be gained through this."

Newspapers too hailed the development. The News said an institutional mechanism to combat terror jointly was "new ground" but vindicated Pakistan's position following the Mumbai attacks, when President Musharraf offered co-operation in the investigations if India could provide the evidence.

Cooperation

The newspaper said "co-operation between the intelligence agencies of both countries... should be a good thing given the public perception that these entities tend to hold very sceptical views on possible peace between the two countries and often indulge in actions detrimental to an environment conducive for rapprochement."

Recalling that India had in the past rejected the offer of joint investigation and information sharing, the Dawn described the proposed joint mechanism as "a departure from traditional positions" that "should help avoid misunderstanding and the blame game in case terrorists strike again."

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