Tension grows at Pakistan border

Source: Agencies  |   2008-12-31  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

PAKISTAN said yesterday that India had moved troops toward their shared border, following Islamabad's own redeployment of forces toward the frontier amid tensions over the Mumbai attacks.

But India's foreign minister insisted it had done nothing to escalate tensions in the region, while another Indian official denied a separate Pakistani allegation that New Delhi had activated forward air bases.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi made the claims in a televised address that included overtures towards India to resume peace talks.

"I understand India has activated their forward air bases, and I think if they are deactivated, then it will be a big positive signal," Qureshi said. "Similarly, as far as their ground forces are concerned and which have been deputed and deployed, if they are relocated to their peacetime positions, then it will also be a positive signal."

But Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said his country had not widened the diplomatic rift.

"We have not done anything which can escalate the tension between India and Pakistan," he said in New Delhi. "Because from day one, I have been saying that it is not an India-Pakistan issue. This is an attack perpetrated by elements emanating from the land of Pakistan and the Pakistan government should take action against it."

Qureshi said Pakistan favored dialogue aimed at resolving disputes.

"It has always been our desire that we sit at the negotiating table and make each other understand our point of view and carry forward the talks," he said.

Qureshi also offered to send a delegation to New Delhi to help investigate the Mumbai attacks, which killed 164 people. He said India had not turned over evidence backing its claims that Pakistani militants staged the assault although he noted Indian officials had said that was because their investigation was not over.

"The government of Pakistan wants to assure them that when the evidence will come to us, our thinking from day one was constructive and peaceful and we will do our best to reach the bottom of the matter," he said.

Pakistan has taken some suspects into custody and cracked down on a charity allegedly linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group India says was behind the Mumbai siege.

India has also given Pakistan a letter from the surviving gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, claiming he and the nine others were Pakistani. Pakistan says it has no record of Kasab as a citizen.