Islamabad: Pakistan has rejected as "ludicrous and self serving" External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha's assertion that Islamabad continued to be a sponsor of terrorism.

"The Indian Minister's allegations amounted to the pot calling the kettle black," a Foreign Office statement said, reacting to Sinha's remarks in Parliament on March 12 that international community has recognised Pakistan as a sponsor of terrorism and is putting pressure on it to desist from doing so.

"A leadership that falsifies history and promotes systematic harassment of its minorities cannot even be called civilised," the statement said.

Alleging "genocide of Muslim minorities" in India, it said the country should be declared a terrorist state.

Such statements from New Delhi "only revealed the bankruptcy of the Indian policy of tarnishing the image of Pakistan," it said.

PTI