WAsHINGTON, May 22: The United States believes that the political will exists in Pakistan to stop terrorism and that Gen Pervez Musharraf is committed to removing extremism as an activity in Pakistan, but it also feels that it hasn’t obtained the total results it wants on “cross-border infiltration”.

The US view was outlined by Ambassador frank Taylor, the State Department’s Coordinator for Terrorism, in reply to questions at a briefing to the foreign press on Tuesday afternoon following the release of the department’s annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report. The questions reflected scepticism voiced in India and in the media here about the Musharraf government’s determination to move against Pakistan-based militants.

Ambassador Taylor said the January 12 speech by President Musharraf and his commitment to move Pakistan away from extremist violence was a watershed. But like anything, it would take hard work to make it happen and could not happen overnight.

“But we do believe that President Musharraf is a man of his word and is committed as a leader of pakistan to challenge extremism and to remove it as a way .... as an activity within Pakistan.”

Mr Taylor said terrorism that indiscriminately killed innocent civilians “in the name of freedom fighters, or whatever you want to call it, is unacceptable anywhere in the world, be it New York, be it Kashmir, be it Tel Aviv, Jerusalem”.

“We’ve also made it very clear to President Musharraf,” Mr Taylor added, “that it’s very important, in lessening the tension (over Kashmir), that there be no infiltration across the line of control that had been a problem in the past. We’ve not gotten where we want to be.”

However, the US was not sceptical about Gen Musharraf’s intentions. “We believe he’s a man of his word and that he is making efforts to improve the circumstance. We just haven’t gotten the total results we’re looking for, but we’re nevertheless going to continue to work with both sides towards a dialogue that we believe to be the ultimate resolution of the situation between the two countries.”

Mr Taylor added India and Pakistan needed to talk about terrorists on either side of the border and how they could work jointly together to do that. “But that can’t happen if you’re not talking. And that dialogue is not occurring right now. And that’s what we seek to have happen in the future.”

Earlier at a general briefing on the Patterns of Global terrorism report, Mr Taylor had said Al Qaeda had an infrastructure throughout the world, “and now our challenge is to use our law enforcement and our intelligence capacity to root out that infrastructure that is buried in many countries around the world”. Some 1,600 arrests had so far been made in the crackdown on Al Qaeda, and those arrested were facing judicial review in the countries in which they had been arrested.

The report made no changes in the state department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism that consists of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.