By IANS,
New Delhi : There is no “war of words” between India and the US over reports that US intelligence officials were aware of the Mumbai terror attacks conspiracy through Lashkar-e-Toiba militant David Headley, asserted US Ambassador Timothy Roemer here Friday.
“This is not a war of words…,” said Roemer in an interview to CNN-IBN channel here, when asked if the US could have done more on sharing of information with India.
“We shared David Headley with the intel officials of India so that they could ask any questions they wanted,” he said.
Denying that the issue will cast a shadow over the visit of US President Barack Obama – who arrives Nov 6 on a four-day visit – Roemer noted: “When India asked for access to David Headley responsible for some of the activities leading to 26/11, the United States granted that access”.
He said that there has been “a historic and unprecedented sharing of intelligence between the two countries”.
India’s External Affairs minister S. M. Krishna had publicly stated that the US had only shared “very general” and “non-specific” information before the Mumbai terror attacks.
This was reinforced by Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, who expressed “disappointment” that the US had not shared information on Headley. “Had they done so, at least after the horrific Mumbai attacks, Headley could have been nabbed as he travelled to India in March 2009,” Pillai said.
US officials have asserted that there has been regular supply of information and sought to downplay the controversy, stressing that expanding counter-terror cooperations will be among important issues that will be on the table when Obama holds talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.