NEW DELHI, Sept 17: Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Shivshankar Menon on Sunday denied that his government had ever accused Pakistan in the Mumbai train blasts and said a joint anti-terror mechanism agreed by their leaders in Havana was good for both countries.
Defending the proposed bilateral mechanism agreed by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr Menon said the future of the peace process had depended on a common approach to fight terrorism.
“Yes, it is new. We have not done this together before,” he told Indian journalists in Havana.
Mr Menon will be India’s foreign secretary from next month. He clarified that it was this agreement in Havana that made the rest of the joint statement, including the decision to resume the foreign secretary-level talks between the two countries possible. “Terrorism is an issue that has to be addressed together,” he said in response to a series of queries on the surprise announcement. Most of the questions related to how New Delhi could work with Pakistan after blaming it for years for terrorist attacks in India.
Mr Menon said India had joint working groups on terrorism with some 23 countries and two regional groupings — the EU and BIMSTEC.
He said details about the mechanism and how it would carry out its work would be decided by the two sides in the coming weeks. “But there is a broad mandate,” he pointed out. The joint statement said the mechanism would identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations.
At one level, India will do whatever it can within the country to prevent such incidents. The proposed mechanism would help tackle such elements in Pakistan, he said.
About the July 11 blasts, he said the government was still in the process of investigating the Mumbai blasts and was yet to come to any conclusion about who was behind them. “We need to eliminate terrorism, whatever its source,” Mr Menon said. “Both governments have been trying to deal with it.”
