Wednesday, September 20 2006 14:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: While the Pakistan government is optimistic that the joint mechanism with India on terrorism would work, sections of the media say it could do so only if one of the two countries "alters its perception" on terrorism.

Expressing doubts about the workability of the mechanism, agreed to in Havana by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, The Nation newspaper said in an editorial that it was "strange".

It wondered how such an arrangement could work when the basic perceptions about what constituted terrorism differed widely.

"Islamabad regards the armed struggle in Kashmir as being waged by freedom fighters, while India treats them as terrorists," the editorial said.

"Pakistan needs to put its public in the picture about what that joint mechanism is and how it is going to work, considering the contrasting connotations of the term on both sides," it added.

However, Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said Tuesday that the "institutional mechanism" to fight terror would work as similar arrangements in the region had yielded "good results".

However, she steered clear of the debate in the media on both sides of the border on whether India had shifted from its known hardline position.

She pointed out that the 'institutional mechanism' to identify and implement counter-terrorism strategies would be coordinated by the ministries of foreign affairs, interior and information.