Evidence against Saeed is in Pakistan, Tharoor says
Minister cites need for progress in mumbai case to restart peace talks
New Delhi : India cannot negotiate with Pakistan while having a gun pointed at its head, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said yesterday, reacting to Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi accusing India of being "myopic".
In an interview telecast on CNN-IBN yesterday, Qureshi said that India was being narrow-minded in not coming to the table for talks.
"I think you [India] are being myopic. You are being narrow-minded. You have to look at the boarder picture and the broader picture demands cooperation and not confrontation," he said at Port of Spain, where he is leading the Pakistani delegation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the absence of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Qureshi contested repeated Indian claims that Pakistan had failed to bring to justice those behind the Mumbai attacks.
"On the contrary, I think Pakistan has made reasonable progress on the investigation. The trial has begun, ... they are under trial and we feel that we have collected sufficient [evidence] against them to argue a genuine case for their conviction."
He also said that India had provided "inadequate" evidence to prosecute Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, who India has named as the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
"On Hafiz Saeed, honestly, the evidence provided is inadequate," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi said.
In Delhi, Tharoor retorted that any evidence that had to be unearthed against Saeed had to be done in Pakistan itself.
"Surely the evidence is available in their country, where the man has been conducting his nefarious activities. So, it seems to me that in saying that the evidence is not enough, the Pakistani government is essentially saying that its own investigative capabilities are not what they should be," Tharoor said here.
On the demand to restart talks, Tharoor said that there had to be adequate progress by Pakistan for India to return to the table. India had frozen all talks after the November 26-29, 2008 Mumbai carnage that claimed the lives of 166 people, including 26 foreigners.
