ISLAMABAD: Pakistan yesterday reiterated that it would not handover the suspects of the Mumbai terror attacks in the country.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi made the remarks while talking to reporters in eastern Multan City.
Earlier on Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had urged Pakistan to handover the suspects to India.
“We do not have an extradition treaty with India nor with the US,” Qureshi told a press conference.
However, “please do not compare; every situation is not identical,” Qureshi said when a journalist asked him about the handover of Pakistanis to the US.
The foreign minister admitted that the Mumbai attacks, which killed over 180 people, were a setback in the relations between Pakistan and India.
“There is a pause in the composite dialogue, but we will endeavor to end this pause and move towards normal relations. We must emerge from the stress that has developed in our relations,” he said.
Qureshi said tension with India had reduced but not yet got fully over.
“Friends and important nations in the region and beyond played positive roles to defuse the tension,” he said, adding that good relations with India would remain Pakistan’s priority.
“The Mumbai incident was a serious matter. There were great losses. We have to reach to the bottom of the matter that such incidents do not repeat in future.
“There should be a regional approach for solution. It is in our own interest,” Qureshi told reporters.
The Indian prime minister on Saturday asked Pakistan to hand over the “criminals responsible for Mumbai attacks so that they face trial in India.”
New Delhi wants Islamabad to dismantle what it says are terrorist training camps on its territory, and extradite at least 40 suspects.
Qureshi said the top US diplomat for South Asia will visit Pakistan this week amid simmering tensions between Islamabad and India in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks. Qureshi told a press conference broadcast live from the central city of Multan that he would meet US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher today.
“Richard Boucher is visiting Pakistan. I have a meeting set with him on Monday,” Qureshi said, without disclosing details about the agenda for the meeting.
“He deals with South Asian affairs and he routinely visits Pakistan.” The US Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment.
Indian media reported that Boucher was also due in New Delhi, for talks likely to focus on tensions between India and Pakistan, and the ongoing investigation into the attacks on Mumbai, which left over 180 people dead including the attackers.
Indian Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment, and the US Embassy in New Delhi would only say that Boucher’s trip was not yet confirmed.
A number top of US officials have visited both Pakistan and India, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her deputy John Negroponte, following the attacks in a bid to defuse tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.
