Pakistan must fight militant groups that threaten Afghan, Indian and U.S. interests, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday, as he voiced sympathy for the victims of the Dec. 16 attack on a Peshawar military school.
Mr. Kerry, on a visit to Pakistan, said all extremists groups should be targeted equally.
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"Terror groups like the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other groups, continue to pose a threat to Pakistan, to its neighbours, and to the United States, and we all of us have a responsibility to ensure that these groups do not gain a foothold but rather are pushed back into the recesses of (Pakistan's) memory," Mr. Kerry said in Islamabad.
"This task is obviously far from finished."
Mr. Kerry added that he was deeply concerned by recent violence on the border between Pakistan and India and called on the neighbours to find a diplomatic solution.
"We continue to be deeply concerned by the recent spate of increased violence along the working boundary and the Line of Control," Mr. Kerry said.
"It is profoundly in the interests of Pakistan and India to move this relationship forward," he said.