Kolkata: Pakistani lawmakers on a goodwill mission to India on May 13 admitted that current efforts for a thaw between India and Pakistan was "under US pressure", but hoped that initiative would be seized by the leadership on both sides who were strong enough to take desired action.

"USA is not a super power, but a hyper power and its interference in problems anywhere in the world is a known fact, whether we like it or not," leader of the delegation Ishaq Khan Khakwani told reporters when asked whether US has something to do with the current initiative.

Khakwani, who represents the ruling Muslim League-Q in the National Assembly, however, said America wanted that there should be no tension in South Asia.

He also expressed confidence of a breakthrough in the current initiative saying that the leadership on both sides – Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf – were strong enough to resolve the long- standing impasse.

While condemning the perpetrators of terrorism in both countries, another member of the delegation M P Bhandara said terrorist forces in Pakistan were as much a threat to its national security as those operating in India.

"Terrorists are enemies of both countries. Be it the Naga terrorists or a Veerappan in India, or the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in Pakistan, they belong to the same clan," he said.

He, however, admitted that LeT was allowed to collect funds for so-called 'jihad' (holy war) in Kashmir, but termed such operations "legitimate" though under intense scrutiny from the state.

The Pakistani lawmakers' delegation, in the last leg of its India tour that began on May 9 as part of track-II diplomacy initiative by the Indo-Pak People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, emphasised that terrorists should not be allowed to become "dictatorial elements" and create a rift between the two nations.

"Terrorists at the LoC can't be stopped by forces of either country. We must now try to de-emphasise them by creating a cross-border corridor through which legitimate people and not terrorists can get entry," MNA of Pakistan People's Party Shakila Rashid said.

Khakwani said that the track-II initiative was undertaken in an attempt to achieve a breakthrough, as there had been a total breakdown in relationship between the two countries in the last 17 months and the ties had reached an all time low.

"Embassies were downgraded, no visas, no flights…the relationship was not this bad even during the Indo-Pak war," he said.

To a question if the peace process could be envisaged without a democratic set-up in place in Pakistan, Bhandara said all stakeholders of the country had been represented in the present government and problems within themselves would be resolved soon.

Bhandara also sought support from the people of India in getting back to a true democratic set up saying, "Martial law is not a good thing. You have not experienced it, but we have gone through it and we are currently passing through a phase of transition."

He said after the formation of Parliament, the National Assembly wanted to break the impasse and understand the needs of the public through a people-to-people contact programme, inputs of which would be passed on to the Pakistan government.

Rashid, who belonged to Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's party, said that the country was definitely moving towards democracy despite the fact that their leader has been living in self-exile for more than five years.

Toeing the national line, the delegation scotched allegations of Inter-Sevices Intelligence (ISI)-sponsored terrorism in India saying the agency's sole job was to carry on intelligence work for the Pakistani Army.

"ISI gets named in any disruptive activity in India without any concrete proof," Khakwani alleged.

PTI