ISLAMABAD, 7 March 2007 — The first meeting of an India-Pakistan anti-terror panel was held here yesterday, with talks focusing on the firebombing of a train linking the two countries which killed 68 people, officials said.
Pakistan said it would use the panel, set up late last year by the nuclear-armed South Asia rivals, to push India for information about the Feb. 19 blasts on the Delhi-Attari Express.
“The attack will be discussed. The Indian leadership has assured us that whatever information they have by the time this meeting takes place they would share it with us,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
“And we expect to hear from them.” The formation of the panel was announced in November, when top Indian and Pakistani diplomats resumed peace talks in New Delhi following the July 2006 train bombings in Mumbai in which over 200 people died. The idea was first floated in September during a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of an international summit in Cuba.
At the time they met, the peace process launched by the two countries in January 2004 was on ice. India had alleged that the ISI, Pakistan’s shadowy spy agency, was behind the Mumbai blasts and Islamabad denied the claim.
But with both countries taking a more measured line after last month’s train attack, Aslam said that the panel was set up to prevent terrorism in both the countries through mutual cooperation.
“This is a mechanism which has been established to help the two countries prevent terrorist act on either soil. It is a two-way mechanism and this can be used to share information to cooperate by mutual agreement,” she said.
“We are approaching it with positive mindset.”
