India’s envoy in Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal has met the ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha among other senior officials in Islamabad to try to revive the stalled peace talks, the main obstacle being alleged Pakistani fingerprints on cross-border terrorism, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said.
PM said it was not his intention to hurt President Asif Ali Zardari by raising the issue of terrorism with him before the media in Russia. He said there were difficulties in the quest of peace.
‘But I have not given up hope. Let me say that what I had said to Mr. Zardari, I had not intended to say that in the presence of all the media. I simply forgot that the media were present there. It was not my intention in anyway to hurt Mr. Zardari feelings.’
The revelation about the meeting with the ISI chief came in the course of Dr Singh’s interaction with the media on his way back from the G8 summit in Rome on Friday night.
It may be recalled that there was considerable commotion on both sides in the wake of the November terror attacks in Mumbai when some reports said that India had ‘summoned’ the ISI chief to New Delhi, a phrase that was not liked by anyone in Pakistan. That rendezvous never happened.
However Pakistan government announced on Saturday that the trial of five suspects arrested for their alleged involvement in Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008, would commence next week and said that India was responsible for the delay in investigations.
Addressing a Press briefing after his meeting with Acting Indian High Commissioner, Interior Minister Rehman Malik rejected the impression that Pakistan was delaying the investigations of the Mumbai attacks and said that India took 90 days to complete the investigations and submit challan, while Pakistan submitted it just in 76 days.
He added that Pakistani intelligence agencies worked hard to dig out the case and collect evidences and now no one could say that Pakistan was not conducting the investigations seriously.
He said Pakistan had completed the investigations of the five arrested suspects and their trial would commence
from next week, however, he added that further investigations would continue.
