views
Islamabad: Pakistan will publish findings of its investigation into November's terror attacks in Mumbai early next week, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Friday.
Gilani also said newly appointed US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke would be visiting Pakistan on Monday.
Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained since the Mumbai terror strikes.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said this week Pakistan's main spy agency was linked to planners behind the attack, the first time the government has directly named the organisation in connection with the raids.
Pakistan has denied any involvement by state agencies and has said it was investigating a dossier of information from India.
"We will publish a report ... by Monday or Tuesday on the information given in their dossier," Gilani told reporters in the city of Lahore. India said the dossier contained the confession of a surviving attacker, satellite phone intercepts between the attackers and their handlers in Pakistan, and a list of Pakistani-made weapons used by the terrorists.
Menon accused Pakistan of "prevarication" in investigating the attacks and bringing to justice the perpetrators who he said were "clients and creations" of the ISI spy agency.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry rejected Menon's comment. "It was yet another manifestation of undisguised hostility and global smear campaign being conducted by India against Pakistan," the ministry said in a statement.
"CONFUSION" OVER HOLBROOKE
Gilani, announcing that Holbrooke would be visiting on Monday, said there was confusion over the envoy's mandate. Pakistan had expected the United States to appoint an envoy for South Asia as a whole, including India and the divided Kashmir region.
"There is still confusion (over) whether he is in charge of the region or he is only confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan," Gilani said, adding terrorism was a regional problem and should be dealt with regionally.
"We welcome Richard Holbrooke for special envoy to Pakistan, Afghanistan and for the region ... and we will discuss with him our regional problem related to terrorism and extremism." Holbrooke, a foreign policy veteran appointed by US President Barack Obama last month, is also due to visit Afghanistan and India on what a U.S. State Department spokesman said this week would be "an orientation trip".
"He is not carrying any messages ... he is going there to listen," spokesman Robert Wood told reporters in Washington. An Indian government official said Kashmir was not part of Holbrooke's brief. "If the US is hoping to bring peace to Afghanistan, it will obviously have to take India into account. We believe his visit will be for that. He wouldn't be here if it were for Kashmir," said the official, who declined to be identified.
Comments
0 comment