Pak for peace talks without preconditions, wants Mumbai evidence in English, Urdu

Islamabad, May 29 (ANI): Pakistan has urged India to resume peace talks without any preconditions.

Addressing a weekly briefing here, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Abdul Basit said Islamabad hopes that the new Indian Government would resume the peace process to resolve long pending issues between both the countries.

"Preconditions for talks are mostly untenable and Pakistan can also do the same, but as a responsible country we do believe to solve problems only through dialogue and cooperative engagement," Basit said.

Referring to India's criticism of Wednesday's suicide attack in Lahore, when External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna had said that India and Pakistan could join hands to fight the spectre of terror, Basit said New Delhi's positive response was encouraging, which was very important to thaw the relationship between both the nations.

"This reinforces what we have been underscoring all along that terrorism is our common enemy and we need to have cooperative engagement within the framework of Joint Anti-Terrorism Mechanism, established in September 2006," Basit added.

Commenting on the dossier provided by India regarding the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Basit said that most of the documents that New Delhi handed over to Islamabad on May 20 were neither in English nor in Urdu, due to which the investigations have been hampered, and the prosecution process has been delayed.

When enquired about Islamabad's claims of involvement of 'foreign hands' in recent terror strikes, he said Pakistan was still trying to gather concrete evidence, especially with reference to the route of supply of weapons and ammunition used in these attacks.

"Once our investigations are complete we should be able to say something in this regard," The Daily Times quoted Basit, as saying. (ANI)