Suspicion between India, Pakistan continues to run deeper: Kerry

Washington, Dec.5 (ANI) : US President Barack Obama's key advisor on foreign policy, John Kerry, while acknowledging the fact that the situation along the India-Pakistan border has improved in the recent past, has said that suspicion between the two countries continues to 'run deeper'.

"It (situation along the Indo-Pak border) has improved in the last few months. The tensions over Mumbai have been deep. And the suspicions run even deeper," Kerry told PBS news channel.

Kerry's remarks came in response to a question that whether New Delhi was helping the Obama Administration in its efforts in Pakistan.

Kerry highlighted that India and Pakistan have a history of troubled relationship which got worse with the Mumbai attacks, and that it was important for the US to play its role in deescalating the tension between the two neighbours.

"These are people who've gone to war three times and who have this sort of quiet war on the front in Kashmir constantly going on. So I think that it is very, very important for us to help change that equation," The Nation quoted Kerry, as saying.

"I think there are things we can do and some things we should pay more attention to," he added.

Kerry said Pakistan constantly believes that Indian influence in Afghanistan is too great, that it is trying to alienate Pakistan on the international stage.

"There are even people who have believed that we have a plot to somehow secure their nuclear weapons. I mean the level of mistrust and even paranoia in the region is extraordinary. It's one of the things we have to work through," said Kerry, the Chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations.

He backed President Obama's views regarding Pakistan being the 'epicentre of terrorism', and said that as long as Al-Qaeda and its top operatives, including Osama bin Laden and second in command Aimen al-Zawahiri are believed to be there, it hard to ally concerns regarding the country falling into the extremists hands.

"I hate to use this term, but in a sense the (region is) spiritual centre, the symbolic centre of al-Qaeda, it strengthens their ability to do things in Somalia, Yemen, Germany, Great Britain, America, elsewhere," Kerry said. (ANI)