Los Angeles: Fight against terrorism is a key component of the strategic Indo-US relations, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani has said.

Speaking at the world affairs council in Los Angeles on June 11 Advani said that India and the United States have to work in active partnership to defeat the menace of terrorism fuelled by religious extremism.

"I would say that this is an important component in the strategic relationship between our two countries, because jihadi terrorism is a threat not only to the security of our two countries, but to peace and tranquility around the world," he said.

Pointing out that India had been a victim of terrorism for more than two decades, Advani said that the sponsors and instigators of this menace hailed from the same common pool that also provides the terrorists that have been active against the United States.

"The epicentre of international terrorism lies in India's immediate neighbourhood. It gives me no joy in pointing fingers, but the involvement of Pakistan can no longer be ignored," Advani said.

Delivering a speech on 'Indo-US relations in a strategic perspective', which was followed by a press conference, Advani said sometimes the barbarities committed by cross-border terrorism in India was sought to be rationalized and justified by invoking the issue of Kashmir.

The facts of history and the reality of today, he said, are well known to all objective observers of Indo- Pak relations.

Responding to a Pakistani journalist who raised the issues of democracy in Kashmir, Advani's involvement in the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the "rape of 40,000 women in Kashmir," the Deputy Prime Minister said despite the kind of threats that candidates and campaigners in the Jammu and Kashmir elections had to face, more than 45 per cent participated freely and it was open to all.

"All embassies based in New Delhi sent their observers to Kashmir and elections according to all were free, fair and transparent," he said.

Regarding the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Advani said any fresh controversy on the issue would not help. As for the supposed rapes in Kashmir, "I think these are not facts."

When asked the possibility of resolving the Kashmir problem, Advani said he was hopeful that in the wake of the support of Prime Minister's latest peace initiative, not only by India, the country, but also of the whole world, "we only look forward to the response being of the nature in which this peace initiative succeeds."

PTI