Washington, September 7 (NIA): The US has told Pakistan that it must eliminate terrorist groups on its soil which target neighboring countries which are presently, India and Afghanistan.
Speaking at the daily press briefing, the US State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Mark C. Toner, said that Washington has long encouraged and pushed for greater counterterrorism cooperation which includes the sharing of intelligence between India and Pakistan in the Mumbai terror attack on November 11, 2008.
“We’ve been very clear that we want to see accountability and justice in the case of the Mumbai attacks, and as you noted, there were American citizens who lost their lives in that – those terrible attacks. We’ve long encouraged and pushed for greater counterterrorism cooperation, and that includes the sharing of intelligence between India and Pakistan in that regard,” ANI quotes Toner as saying.
“We want to see full accountability for these terrible attacks. We’re working with Pakistan, we’re making our concerns clear that they need to go after all the terrorist groups that are operating or seeking safe haven on their soil. And that’s been our clear objective for a long time now. We’ve seen progress, but we need to see more,” he added.
On being asked on the former U.S. ambassador to the UN and Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad recent statement that the U.S. should consider taking some kind of sanctions against Pakistan for not taking enough action against these terrorist network , Toner said, “I don’t think we’re even at that point. I mean, we continue to have, as I said, conversations with the highest level of the Government of Pakistan.”
He added that the U.S. has received a positive response from Pakistan.
“We have been encouraged by some of the steps they’ve taken, some of their recent counter terrorism operations along the border of the Afghan – Afghanistan. And we’re going to continue to work with them to increase those efforts and apply more pressure on these groups,” Toner said.
India has long asked Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks to justice but Islamabad has claimed that the evidence provided by New Delhi is not sufficient.
Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, who orchestrated the November 2008, Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people were killed is based in Pakistan.
The UN had declared JuD a terror organisation and individually designated Saeed as a terrorist in December 2008, but he continues to live freely in Pakistan.
