Islamabad: The US is not satisfied with Pakistan’s crackdown on terrorists in its terrorists and warned it that the attacks on Mumbai cannot be "swept under the carpet."
Pakistani newspaper the Daily Times reports this message was conveyed to Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani, who visited Washington as the US government was "getting increasingly frustrated with what it views as Islamabad's shifty and shifting position on the Mumbai attacks and their aftermath.
Durrani concluded his unannounced three-day US visit on Saturday during which he met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his American counterpart Stephen Hadley and Pentagon officials.
In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice said on Wednesday that what Pakistan had done so far to catch those responsible for the Mumbai attacks was not enough.
She said her message to the Pakistani leadership was “…you need to deal with the terrorism problem. And it's not enough to say these are non-state actors. If they're operating from Pakistani territory, then they have to be dealt with."
Rice gave a "much stronger message" during her meeting with Durrani, the Dawn newspaper of Pakistan reported quoting diplomatic sources.
The Pakistani team, which included Ambassador Hussain Haqqani, learnt from Rice and Hadley that the US is not satisfied with what Pakistan "had done so far for eradicating terrorism from its soil".
A senior diplomatic source familiar with the talks said: "The curt message that Mr Durrani and the Pakistani team received from the Americans was: this is not 2002 and you cannot do what President (Pervez) Musharraf did after 9/11.In the past, you swept everything under the carpet while the problems were allowed to fester. No more."
The Pakistanis were told that the Mumbai attacks were no ordinary event and the tendency in Pakistan to deal with this as a minor incident was going to hurt it, the Dawn report says.
The US officials "insisted that they had enough evidence to prove that Lashker-e-Toiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah were involved in the Mumbai attacks and they wanted concrete action against all such groups.".
"They told the Pakistanis to understand the gravity of the situation and the seriousness of the evidence that exists to Pakistan's links to this event," the Dawn report says.
"The message the Americans gave was: this is the third time we are saying such a thing. We may not be able to bail you out the fourth time. Global terrorism is not just an India-Pakistan dispute. We see LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawah at par with al-Qaeda. Pakistan should stop thinking of this as just another round of India-Pakistan altercations."
The Pakistani embassy in Washington kept Durrani's visit tightly under wraps and did not tell journalists about his arrival or the reason for his visit.
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