Brussels: NATO urged Pakistan today not to allow the tension with India over the Mumbai attacks to divert it from fighting extremists based in Pakistan's tribal areas whose support for Taliban has fueled the increasing violence in Afghanistan.

"I hope, of course, that the recent successes by Pakistan in fighting the extremists in the northwest will be sustained in the current difficult climate," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after two days of talks with allied foreign ministers. De Hoop Scheffer told a news conference he has received no information from Pakistani authorities that they were planning to divert resources away from the lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border.

The NATO ministers said the alliance was "open to closer military-to-military cooperation" and enhanced political cooperation with Pakistan. They said that NATO's force of 51,000 service members in Afghanistan would explore ways of improving collaboration Pakistani border units.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said last week's terror attacks on Mumbai underscored the need for the West to help Pakistan. He said political, economic and security support should be used to tackle the threat from terrorists based in the Afghan border regions and linked to Kashmir, a territory disputed by India and Pakistan.

Indian authorities have blamed last week's attacks across 10 sites in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people, on a Pakistani terrorist group. Miliband said Pakistan should remain focused on internal threats in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

"The modern threat to Pakistan does not come from India." "The modern threat to Pakistan comes from within, and building up the necessary security, but also the economic and political apparatus in Pakistan, is the exact counterpart to the effort that needs to be made in Afghanistan."

Source : PTI