Amid disclosures by the 26/11 terror suspect Abu Jundal, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he is willing to visit Pakistan but stressed on concrete outcomes on important issues for such a trip.
“I am looking forward to visiting Pakistan. No dates have been finalised for the visit,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, adding, “As you know, there have to be suitable outcomes for such a visit.”
Prime Minister’s comment came a day after the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan held talks in the Indian capital, during which the revelations made by Abu Hamza Jundal, an alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative linking Pakistani state actors to the Nov 26, 2008, Mumbai terror spree, figured prominently in the discussions.
While India pressed Pakistan to act on information relating to Jundal’s disclosures and bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani rejected any insinuation of involvement of Pakistani state agencies in the Mumbai terror attack.
Manmohan Singh had accepted President Asif Ali Zardari’s invitation to visit Islamabad during the latter’s day-long visit to New Delhi April 8, but had indicated that only concrete deliverables on important issues will make such a visit possible.
Given the continuing differences between the two sides on Sir Creek and Siachen, what Islamabad calls the doable issues, not many are expecting any breakthrough that could form the basis for the Indian prime minister’s visit to Pakistan.
The gap between the two sides on the contentious issue of terror was evident at the July 4-5 talks, indicating there was no substantive movement in the dialogue process which the two countries revived in February last year after a long hiatus following the Mumbai attacks.
