Pakistan on Thursday remained non-committal on whether it would act on information shared by India on Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, days after New Delhi pushed Islamabad to take swift action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks of November 2008.
“We have said this repeatedly and I think that it should require no miscommunication or doubts on each other’s intentions because both our countries follow [a] very, very similar system which means that we know what is required to try somebody and what is not,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said.
“...I have repeatedly maintained that and all Pakistan officials have maintained that we mean what we say,” she said.
She was replying to a question on whether Pakistan would take action based on information provided by India during the recent Foreign Secretary-level talks in New Delhi on Jundal — who handled those involved in the 26/11 carnage.
During their meeting, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai had shared with his counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani the information gathered from Jundal who revealed that he, along with LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, was in the control room in Pakistan during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Mr. Mathai also shared the information on Pakistani passport and Pakistan’s domestic identity cards issued to Jundal in the name of Riyasat Ali, indicating the involvement of Pakistan’s State agencies in the 26/11 attacks.
Ms. Khar, who is here to participate in the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting, said: “Today the problems we face, the menace of terrorism is a common problem and if anybody can convince me that there is any other country in the region which suffers from it more than Pakistan I would be happy to sit down and have a conversation.”
Calling for greater cooperation in information-sharing, Ms. Khar said it was important to share information with each other before sharing it with the media.
“I think it is also important that we are able to share information with each other before we share information with the media because that is also a trust building measure because it shows that we are serious about resolving the issue rather than making an issue out of the issue. I think that’s the message,” she said.
Published - July 12, 2012 11:00 am IST
