Washington: India has said President Pervez Musharraf has gone back on his
commitment to the US and global community to permanently stop cross-border terrorism
and close down terrorist camps on Pakistani soil, while urging Washington to put
more pressure on him to stick to his pledge.
"General Pervez Musharraf has simply gone back on his commitments," Foreign
Secretary Kanwal Sibal said in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in
Washington.
"What I would say is for the United States to determine whether there is room for
further pressure," he said.
Rejecting the view that the US and the global community have done all they could,
Sibal pointed out that the US pressure resulted in Musharraf turning against the al-
Qaida and Taleban, which had been built up by Pakistan. "In fact, Musharraf made a
180 degree turn under US pressure."
He suggested the US could, if it tried hard enough, do a repeat of that with regard
to cross-border infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir.
"One cannot say at all that the United States doesn't have the means to apply
pressure," Sibal said.
However, he said the international community, including the US, was adopting "double
standards" on terrorism.
"It is in a spirit of candour amongst friends that I wish to convey a certain sense
of disappointment in India born out of the perception that the international
community could do more to ensure an end to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan,
not as a favour to India, but as part of the international combat against
terrorism," he said.
PTI
