Britain, US urge India and Pakistan to keep talking

London/Washington, Nov.29 : The governments of the United States and Britain are urging India and Pakistan to act with restraint and do nothing that could set back their relations in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

"We are privately encouraging them not to do anything that could derail this process," the Guardian quoted a senior British official, as saying.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to discuss the crisis with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in London before a NATO ministerial meeting on Monday.

Some experts believe that derailing the peace process between Pakistan and India was a goal of the terrorists.

They are of the view that the Mumbai attacks came days after Pakistan President Ali Asif Zardari withdrew his country's first-strike nuclear threat, sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, create an EU-style economic zone with India and allow visa-free travel.

The fragility of the rapprochement between the two countries has been underlined by the fact that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying the attacks was probably masterminded by a group based in an unnamed "neighbouring country" - usually code for Pakistan.

India's Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, went further by saying that "initial evidence" showed "elements with links to Pakistan are involved".

Relief that Pakistan is behaving so helpfully tempered international alarm at this finger pointing. There were hints that the Pakistani authorities might acknowledge the existence of indirect links with terrorist groups.

The US state department said it, like Britain, was sending investigators to Mumbai to help the Indian authorities.

ANI