ISLAMABAD, 28 August 2003 — Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri asked India to investigate the Bombay bombings “impartially” instead of blaming his country for the attack, the state-run PTV television channel reported yesterday.

Islamabad did not name India as being involved, as it suspected, in last month’s massacre in a mosque in the Pakistani city of Quetta, and was waiting for investigations to be completed, Kasuri told reporters while in Lahore.

He said Pakistan would not have hesitated to hand over the 19 men accused by India of involvement in the 1993 Bombay bombings, if they were on its soil as India claims they are.

The minister told the news conference that “this is not the occasion to inflame passion and hurl baseless accusations.”

“We should avoid the conditioned reflex of blaming each other for any incident that may happen in our countries. India is a big country, and instead of blaming Pakistan it should investigate the matter, and before investigation should not pre-judge its outcome.”

India’s Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani alleged those responsible for the 1993 Bombay blasts are in Karachi, southern Pakistan, adding the Pakistani government has consistently refused to extradite them.

Kasuri said such allegations were not in line with the current thaw in relations between the South Asian rivals. He expressed hope the current moves toward normalization would remain unaffected by the tragedy.

Kasuri condemned the latest act of terrorism in Bombay on Monday, and expressed hope it would not hamper the process of normalizing the long-strained relations between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

Advani blamed Pakistan for the attacks on Monday when he visited the two blast sites in south Bombay, and told reporters: “Our neighbor’s war on terror against us is not aimed at Jammu and Kashmir alone ... the blasts were aimed at destabilizing every part of India.”

He directly blamed the attacks on two banned groups: Students Islamic Movement of India, and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. The nuclear neighbors initiated a process in April to mend ties after teetering on the brink of a fourth war since independence for most of last year. They have since reappointed ambassadors and resumed a cross-border bus service.