Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Friday said that Pakistan had finalized work on the visa regime with India and hoped that it would be signed during the visit of the Indian Foreign Minister to Pakistan in September. The interior minister said that Pakistan wants friendly relations with India and added that in some matters it was going out of its way to ensure better relations with its immediate neighbor. Rehman who accompanied the President during his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed the meeting as “excellent”, and said that both countries were heading in the right direction to resolve all outstanding issues.
He said however, that it was the obligation of these two states to identify their common enemy, which does not want the two countries to be friends. “We would not allow anyone to exploit the situation,” he added. The minister referred to many cases in the past in which allegations were leveled against Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), but in the end it transpired that in fact people from India were responsible. He said that all those responsible for creating misunderstanding between the two countries must be stopped, as the real objective was to achieve peace at all costs. Regarding progress on the Mumbai case, he said that Pakistan has taken numerous steps to bring the culprits to justice. He said however, that the commission sent to India by Pakistan had demanded that the three major witnesses; including the doctor, the magistrate and the investigating officer be allowed to be cross examined. He said that once the cross examination report is available, Pakistan’s courts could proceed on the matter. He said that it was a very complex situation where non-state actors, both from Pakistan and India, were involved in creating misunderstandings between the two countries and mentioned David Headly, whom he described as a ‘triple agent’. Rehman expressed his belief that frequent interaction between leaders of the two countries would help improve relations. Regarding Hafiz Saeed, he said that all allegations against him were based on hearsay. He insisted that he had repeatedly asked India for some solid evidence. To a question about the alleged Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorist Abu Jandal, the minister said that he was part of a sting operation, and added that such issues can only be addressed with a visible resolve to fight terrorism.