‘Walk the talk’ for peace dialogue: Pakistan

The Indian Home Secretary’s claim that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai terror attack shows a lingering “trust deficit”, says Pakistan’s ambassador to Indonesia.

“The tenor of the entire report is self-serving and entirely biased,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to Indonesia Sanaullah said during his visit to The Jakarta Post.

Reuters recently repeated the Indian Home Secretary’s comments, which were previously published in the Indian Express newspaper, that said the ISI controlled or coordinated terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people.

“If I have to regard this misguided report, directed against state institutions of the government of Pakistan, as a piece of information, I would hold it to the prevailing trust deficit between the two countries,” Sanaullah said.

He said that it was high time that the Indian bureaucracy and a section of its leadership emerge from historical biases and routine attitudes that blame Pakistani security agencies for all events in India.

“Pakistan has been saying consistently at all levels — and with full responsibility — that the only option looking forward is to walk the talk, sustain bilateral engagement and be cooperative as good neighbors to eliminate the scourge of terrorism,” Sanaullah said.

Sanaullah said that his country had strongly condemned the Mumbai incident, sympathized with the victims and offered assistance to investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice.

“The region has suffered massively from terrorism. Pakistan’s suffering is second to none in the entire world. We have lost 7,400 people. We have also suffered many Mumbai-type terrorist attacks but have refrained from putting blame on others, despite some credible leads,” he said.

Reuters reported from Islamabad that the Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers met on Thursday in an effort to revive peace talks, which were suspended after the Mumbai assault. No breakthrough is expected, given lingering distrust between the old rivals, according to reports.

Shortly after his arrival on Wednesday in Islamabad, Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said he would press Pakistan on progress of its probe into the 2008 attacks on the Indian financial hub.

Talks between Krishna and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi might see the development of a new format to replace the broad 2004 peace process, known as the composite dialogue, that could free the peace process from a quagmire. India cannot be seen as reviving the old peace process until Pakistan punishes the planners of the Mumbai attack.

“We hope that as a result of these talks our two countries agree on an engagement process that should move forward in a sustained manner. It should be uninterrupted,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said before the start of the dialogue.