December 18, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 19, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Dec 17: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has urged India to get into the cooperative mode, cautioning that the chain of events would otherwise take both countries back to the old days of hostility.

“Let us get into a cooperative mode and not indulge in blame game and finger-pointing which would not only be counterproductive, but would take us back from where we had started,” he said at a news conference with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt after holding talks with him here on Wednesday.Urging India to work together with Pakistan against the threat posed by terrorists, Mr Qureshi said: “We should not succumb to these challenges; we should rather stand up to these challenges collectively to defeat the designs of those elements that have caused this strain in relations.”

The ‘pause in peace process’ after last month’s terrorist attack on Mumbai was described by Mr Qureshi as a setback to improvement in relations between the two countries.“We are willing to cooperate with India and we have made a couple of constructive proposals which are still on the table and we are yet to hear the Indian authorities responding positively or negatively to them,” he said.

“The evidence they claim to have given us has been through media. You don’t share evidence through media. There are diplomatic channels for that, which are open.”

Reiterating Pakistan’s offer to work jointly against the “common enemy” of terrorism, he said India was welcome to provide leads into the Mumbai carnage and “we will follow those leads to get to the bottom of the issue and prevent recurrence of such incidents”.

“Vis-a-vis terrorism, I feel we have a common objective. We have a common challenge. We have a common enemy. Let us join hands to defeat this enemy,” he said. Mr Qureshi said India appeared not to be ready to share evidence with Pakistan for the time being because it was busy putting together titbits of information available. Pakistan would wait for the Indians to share the information, he said.

He said Pakistan was not hostile to India and there was largely a consensus in the country to pursue the path of peace and normalise ties. “I have spent a considerable amount of time building bridges between the two countries because I believe that it is in our interest to do so.”

The Swedish foreign minister said there was “conclusive evidence” that the attack had been carried out by elements from Pakistan. “The base areas for the attack were in Pakistan,” he said.

The minister said Pakistan had a special responsibility to act against the groups accused of involvement in the attack.

However, Pakistan as a nation and country could not be incriminated for the crime of some individuals, he said. “Incriminating a nation takes us in the wrong direction and should be taken out of the vocabulary. It is a question of criminals, individuals and terrorists.”

AFP adds: Foreign Minister Qureshi said: “I am confident that we will overcome this hiccup... as the future of Pakistan demands good-neighbourly relations with India, it’s my responsibility to develop good bilateral relations.”