Backdoor efforts underway to normalise ties

Islamabad: Backchannel efforts are on to normalise relations between India and Pakistan that have hit a rocky patch after the Mumbai terror attacks that India says was launched by terrorists from Pakistan.

A senior government official said that initial contacts between the two neighbours has been made and "soon" a Pakistani official - a former secretary of foreign affairs - would be travelling to New Delhi to take the Indian leadership into confidence on Pakistan's efforts to curb terrorism in the region.

Refusing to divulge the name of the former secretary who is going to India, the official said that the names on both the sides would be kept a secret until the contact is declared official by both the governments.

India has charged that the terrorists involved in the attacks in Mumbai in which 172 people, including foreigners, were killed came from Pakistan and has demanded extradition of three people - Indian mobster Dawood Ebrahim, chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, Masood Azhar, and chief of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed.

Dawood extradition

Pakistan has denied that Dawood Ebrahim is in Pakistan and asked India to give proof of the involvement of the other two in the attack.

"If India provides us evidence we are ready to take action against the people concerned," President Asif Ali Zardari has said repeatedly. According to the official, the backdoor channel diplomacy was opened after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice convinced the Indian leadership not to close the communication channels between the countries. In her press conference in Islamabad on Thursday, Rice had said that she sees no reason for closure of communication channels between India and Pakistan and hoped that both will continue talking as there was a lot of information to share.

The official said the backdoor contacts are in very initial stage and the parleys may take place anywhere, "beyond media access", to exchange "non-papers" for cooperation on terrorism.

Meeting: Rice cites 'evidence'

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is understood to have told Pakistan that there was "irrefutable evidence" of involvement of elements in the country in the Mumbai attacks and that it needs to act urgently and effectively to avert a strong international response, a media report yesterday said.

"The information emerging after her departure indicates that in her meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani during her four-hour stay in Islamabad, she had told them that Islamabad's options were quite limited," Dawn newspaper said.

Contrary to the formal statements issued by Pakistani authorities and her own statement at the Chaklala Airbase before her departure, sources said she "pushed the Pakistani leaders to take care of perpetrators, otherwise the US will act".

She is reported to have said that the response needed to be "effective and focused" and that India was thinking on similar lines.