Pak calls for intelligence sharing with India

Islamabad, Nov 16: Pakistan called today for intelligence sharing with India to pre-empt militant attacks, a day after two countries finalised plans to set up a panel to tackle terrorism.

The nuclear-armed South Asian rivals said yesterday, at the end of two days of talks between their top diplomats in the Indian capital, they had agreed on a plan for a terrorism panel as well as on a pact on reducing the risk of nuclear accidents.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Mr Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri said both countries were effected by terrorism.

''Let us try and pre-empt the incidents by intelligence sharing,'' Mr Kasuri told reporters.

''The incidents do not take place just in India. It also takes place in Pakistan. Pakistan also has much interest in making this mechanism succeed,'' he said.

The anti-terrorism panel would consist of three members from each country and would be jointly headed by their top foreign ministry officials, the two sides said.

The neighbours launched a tentative peace process in 2004 but it stalled after train bombings in Mumbai on July 11 that killed 186 people.

Indian police accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba of conspiring with Indian militants to carry out the attacks.

Mr Kasuri said India had not provided any evidence of involvement of Pakistan's spy agency or Pakistan-based militants in the blasts but said action would be taken if evidence was provided.

''Whenever evidence is given, evidence has to be concrete, we will follow up on that,'' he said.

REUTERS