ISI not involved in Rabbani assassination: Pakistan

Pakistan strongly rejected on Sunday what it said were “baseless” allegations of the Afghan interior minister of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)’s involvement in the assassination of Afghan High Peace Council chairman Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani.
A Foreign Office (FO) statement said Rabbani was a great friend of Pakistan and widely respected. He had lived in Pakistan for a long time and had many friends here, the FO said. “The so-called evidence given to the Pakistan embassy in Kabul is actually a confessional statement of an Afghan national Hamidullah Akundzadeh accused of masterminding the assassination,” the FO said, adding that the authority concerned would work upon this piece of information.
The FO said the Afghan interior minister had not highlighted the fact that the assassin and his handler had been roaming around in Kandahar and Kabul for quite some time. “Also, the Afghan interior minister did not say that the assassin had been four days in the guest house of the High Peace Council managed by Afghans close to Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani,” it said. The FO said further that the assassin was also apparently not body-searched before the meeting and these facts were also part of the confession handed over to the embassy by Afghan intelligence. The FO said the interior minister’s statement was all the more regrettable as Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had himself offered cooperation in the investigation during his visit to Kabul to offer condolences to Rabbani’s family and the Afghan people and government.
FAVOURABLY DISPOSED: “Instead of making such irresponsible statements, those in positions of authority in Kabul should seriously deliberate as to why all those Afghans who are favourably disposed towards peace and towards Pakistan are systematically being removed from the scene and killed,” the FO said, adding that there was a need to take stock of the direction taken by Afghan intelligence and security agencies. The FO said Pakistan had unequivocally condemned the act of terrorism that led to the killing of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. “Pakistan reiterates its commitment to peace and stability as well as to mutual respect,” said the FO.
AFGHAN STATEMENT: A statement from Afghanistan’s presidential palace issued on Sunday had quoted investigators as saying Rabbani’s killer was Pakistani.
Evidence showed that Rabbani’s death last month “was plotted in Quetta and the person who carried out the suicide attack against Rabbani was a citizen of Pakistan”, AFP quoted the statement as saying. It added that the killer had been living in Chaman, near Quetta. The Afghan government has also decided to seek UN assistance in the investigation of Rabbani’s murder. Online news agency cited diplomatic sources as saying that the decision had been made after detailed consensus of the Afghan government with its leaders and tribal jirgas.
INDIA PRESSURING: Sources also said even India was pressuring Karzai to seek UN assistance in the investigations and had assured its full cooperation. President Karzai has arrived in India for talks on the issue, after which he is likely to make his formal request to the UN for the investigation of Rabbani’s murder.