Pakistan needs to go further, faster on Mumbai -UK
16 Jan 2009 16:09:49 GMT Source: Reuters
(Recasts with Miliband comment) By Robert Birsel ISLAMABAD, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Pakistan must go further and faster in prosecuting people involved in the November attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai and in rooting out terrorism, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Friday. Pakistan assured Miliband that it would conduct a transparent inquiry into the attacks in which 179 people were killed, and promised to bring the perpetrators to justice. Miliband said he believed Pakistan was sincere in its commitment to prosecute those behind the assault, which both he and India said was the work of the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Islamist militant group. "They have taken steps since the end of November to detain significant numbers of people associated with the LeT organisation, this is welcome," Miliband told a news conference. "But .. the action needs to go further and the action needs to go faster," said Miliband, who arrived in Pakistan from India. Tensions have run high between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours since the assault on India's financial hub, with India increasingly frustrated with what it sees as Pakistan's lack of action in response. For its part, Pakistan has been angered by an Indian suggestion Pakistani state agencies were involved and what it sees as repeated Indian hints of military action. But the chances of a military confrontation have receded, according to analysts, thanks in part to the diplomacy of the United States and other powers. Pakistan has in the past used Islamist militants to further foreign policy objectives: in Afghanistan to fight Soviet occupiers in the 1980s and later to oppose Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistan has detained scores of members of the LeT and an affiliated Islamic charity, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, but India is demanding it dismantle what it calls the "infrastructure of terrorism". "FULL FACTS" Miliband, who said in India the Pakistani state was not linked to the Mumbai attacks, held talks with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. He was due to meet President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani. Pakistan condemned the Mumbai attack from the outset and denied involvement of any of its agencies. It has offered to cooperate with India in the investigation. "Pakistan remains determined to uncover full facts pertaining to the Mumbai incident," the Foreign Ministry quoted Qureshi as telling Miliband. Qureshi said Pakistan would use information provided by India as well as Pakistan's own investigations "to establish legally tenable evidence to bring the perpetrators to justice". Miliband said terrorism posed a "mortal threat" to Pakistan and its neighbours and Pakistanis faced a choice between building a decent society and an alternative in which a small minority held the rest of the country to ransom. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee reiterated that India wanted the Mumbai attack plotters to be extradited to India despite a report that he had earlier said the accused could be tried and punished in Pakistan. Pakistan has ruled out sending Pakistanis to face trial in India. Miliband, who in India had shown no support for India's demand for extradition of the accused, said India's "first preference" was to see suspects put on trial in India but that did not rule out successful prosecutions in Pakistan. (Editing by Jon Boyle) (For related items on the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the risk of conflict see [nISL360059] and [nISL382664])
Pakistani tribesmen park their trucks to block the supplies for the NATO forces from reaching the southwest Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing, in Chaman January 13, 2009. Western military supplies passing through Pakistan ...
