Washington, Sep 23 (Inditop.com) India has accused Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of playing a disruptive role in the Taliban insurgency by continuing to provide aid to the Afghan Taliban to complicate the military situation there.
“They are a tandem,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
“They are still together,” Krishna said, suggesting the Pakistan government has been unable to break ties between its spy agency and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Krishna also said India felt “vindicated” after former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said recently that some US anti-terrorism aid had been used to bolster traditional defences against India.
“We have always been cautioning our friends, the United States, that please, please for heaven’s sake make sure that the aid you are giving to Pakistan is not directed and misappropriated to be used against India, a friend of yours,” the foreign minister said.
Krishna said India would “appeal to our friends across the board to prevail on Pakistan to see the part of reason and bring to justice all those behind the attack on Mumbai”.
He suggested that if India were attacked again, it might not show the same restraint against Pakistan as before.
“I hope there won’t be any attacks, but if there is an attack on India, India is fully prepared to meet (it),” he said.
Terror on both the east and western borders of Pakistan will top the agenda when Krishna meets Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Saturday in New York.
The terrorist attack that killed over 160 people in Mumbai last November will be India’s “focal point” of the talks, Krishna said.
Krishna also dismissed suggestions that India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan is intended to encircle Pakistan, a fear prevalent in some circles in Pakistan.
“I think that is a baseless allegation,” he said. “India’s role in Afghanistan is to help them to stabilise their infrastructure development.”
“That’s our immediate concern. That is the reason why we were asked to come to Afghanistan. We are building roads, we are building school buildings and we are building transmission lines.”
In all, Indian reconstruction aid totals $1.2 billion. Krishna said the investment was worth the risk despite the continued conflict.
