India and Pakistan agree to share intelligence information
Hope to prevent terrorist attacks
NEW DELHI - India and Pakistan agreed yesterday to increase communication and information-sharing in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks, and said dialogue was the only way forward after violence such as November’s siege in Mumbai.
The leaders of the two countries spoke for almost two hours on the sidelines of the ongoing Non-Aligned Movement summit at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. In a statement afterward, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani of Pakistan agreed to “share real-time, credible, and actionable’’ intelligence information about possible terror plots.
The joint statement represented a break for the bitter blame game that followed the deadly Mumbai attacks. “Both leaders affirmed their resolve to fight terrorism and cooperate with each other to this end,’’ the statement said.
Until now, New Delhi had insisted that Pakistan must take “concrete and demonstrable’’ action on terror as a precondition for the resumption of peace talks.
The text of the jointly agreed statement yesterday, however, said that “action on terror should not be linked to the composite dialogue process’’ and that “terrorism is the main threat to both countries.’’
During the talks, Singh reiterated his demand to “bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice,’’ and Gillani assured that Pakistan will do “everything in its power in this regard.’’
Gillani described the meeting as a “breakthrough,’’ according to the Press Trust of India.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars against each other. Talks between the two nations broke down in November when 10 gunmen laid siege for three days to Mumbai and attacked five-star hotels, train stations, and a Jewish prayer center, killing more than 170 people.
New Delhi accused an outlawed Pakistan-based Islamist group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, of engineering the attacks. One of the gunmen, a Pakistani national, is in Indian custody and is undergoing a court trial in Mumbai.
In another step toward cooperation, Singh met President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan in Russia last month for the first time since November.
