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Islamabad made its stand clear while reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assertion that for the resumption of dialogue, Pakistan must meet the "minimum pre-condition" of ensuring that its soil will not be used for terror activities against India.
"We should move forward and not backwards. By putting conditions, we would be going backward," said Pakistan Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar.
Asked about the pre-condition set by Singh, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said, "When we have a dialogue we cannot have pre-conditions."
Babar insisted that Pakistan had "fully cooperated and is still cooperating" with India in investigating the Mumbai attacks to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Addressing a press conference at the end of the G-20 Summit last evening, Singh said, "India is willing to discuss bilaterally all outstanding issues, including Kashmir. It (Pakistan) has to convince us that it is absolutely sincere in bringing to book the culprits of the attack on Mumbai."
India put the composite dialogue on hold following the Mumbai attacks on November 26 that killed over 180 people. New Delhi has blamed Pakistan-based elements, including the banned Lashker-e-Taiba group for the strike and urged Islamabad to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Singh made it clear that discussions with Pakistan cannot proceed if hundreds of people are being killed, as had happened in the case of the Mumbai attacks.
The Indian leader said that Pakistan must do everything to bring all culprits involved in the Mumbai terror attack to the book. "The ball is in the court of Pakistan."
Singh was speaking after his maiden meeting with US President Barack Obama during which they discussed developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan and cooperation in countering forces of terror.
Obama later said terrorism emanating from Pakistan figured in the discussions as "obviously, we are very concerned about extremists and terrorists who have made camps in the border regions of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan."
At the same time, the US President pushed for Indo-Pak dialogue. "It may make sense to create an effective dialogue between India and Pakistan in this nuclear age and at a time when perhaps the greatest enemy" of the two countries should be poverty, Obama said.
Pakistan welcomed Obama's call for Indo-Pak dialogue. "We have already called for the resumption of the composite dialogue process without any conditions," Babar said.
In order to move forward, talks between the two countries should be "resumed at the point at which they were suspended" in the wake of last year's Mumbai terror attacks, he added.
Basit said, "We can't agree more with President Obama as we have been saying the resumption of the composite dialogue is absolutely important and necessary for cooperative engagement and addressing all issues bedevilling our relations. We support Obama's comments.
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Entire world is saying that Pakistan is not doing enough to control terrorism in its country. But Pakistan is not commiting itself to remove terrorist camps from its territory. Pakistan will be another failed state like Somalia.
It has, now, become quite clear that the Pakis have no intention of giving up state terrorism and curbing other terrorism. The only thing left for India to do is to create its own terrorism and give a fitting response to the Pakis. That is the only talks and the only language that the America supported Pakis will understand. The US and the world will also see India as a country with guts, more guts than Iran and N.Korea show. The action may upset US's plans for combating the Taliban, but it will make them realise that India's interests cannot be brushed aside.
Pakistan is already on backward move...No need to show leniency...though a slight US pressure will keep our politicians and army on their change their tone...and go soft on Pakistan.
The main problem of Pakistan and Afghanistan is poverty, unless and until the political power remains in the hand of “Jaminadar” and not transfer to the common man, the terrorism will remain a major source of employment. As all the limits has been crossed, now its the responsibility of world community to help in eradicating the poverty in South Asia so the common man will come back in the process of development and prosperity. This will automatically kill the terrorism and violence from this region.
The question is who India should speak to,weather alquida,taliban,or the mullahs or ISI or The army or the presidident or prime minister.No body knows who is in chargein Pakistan.
So this is a tacit admission by Pakistan that its territory is being used for launching terrorist attacks against India. Do we really want to have a dialogue with this excuse of a nation?