By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : The US says Pakistan has given it a “very solemn commitment” to disentangle the connection between a Pakistani charitable organisation and a terrorist group accused of mounting the Mumbai terror attacks.
“I think the Pakistani government is being very sincere,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Wednesday when asked about concern in India that Islamabad is not taking enough action against Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a front of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Last week, at the request of India and the US, the UN Security Council had slapped sanctions on JuD and four of its leaders for their alleged involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks.
“Look, they’re (Pakistan) on the front lines of terrorism, as we’ve said many times before. We’ve learned from our own experience about how some of these charitable organisations are tied into terrorist groups,” he said, noting: “This is something that they’re going to have to disentangle.”
“But they’ve given us a very solemn commitment. They’ve told the Indians that they’re going to do everything they can to help with the investigation in terms of trying to find out who did this and to prevent future attacks from happening,” Wood said.
“So we don’t have any doubt that Pakistan is committed to trying to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
The US official said he had no reason to doubt that like the Pakistan government, the country’s army too is being sincere in trying to get to the bottom of the investigation of the Nov 26 Mumbai terror attacks.
“I have no reason to doubt that. I mean, the Pakistani civilian government, you know – well, the Pakistani military submits to civilian government control, so we deal with the Pakistani government.
“And we believe that they’re, as I said, committed to trying to get to the bottom of this investigation and make sure these attacks don’t happen. So I have no reason to think that the Pakistani army feels otherwise,” Wood said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice too has said that she expects Pakistan to “adhere completely” to UN Security Council sanctions on JuD and other terrorist organisations in letter and spirit.
It is for Pakistan to figure out how they are going to implement the Security Council sanctions, she told reporters at the UN Tuesday when asked about the Pakistan foreign minister’s statement that his government would not take action against the charitable activities of JuD.