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Cameron Denies Terror Comments Damaged Relations With Pakistan Government
David Cameron defended his attack on groups in Pakistan he accused of exporting terrorism as diplomatic tensions threatened to overshadow his first visit to India as U.K. prime minister.
Cameron said his remarks, made yesterday after a speech in Bangalore, were aimed at people within Pakistan responsible for terrorism rather than the government. Pakistan had taken steps in recent years to fight terrorism, he said.
“I believe in speaking clearly and plainly on these issues,” Cameron told a press conference in New Delhi after talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “There are terror organizations in Pakistan that need to be cracked down on and eliminated.”
Pakistan yesterday defended its record on fighting terrorism after Cameron said “we cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world.”
Writing in the London-based Guardian newspaper, Pakistan’s high commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said the comments risked “damaging the prospects of regional peace.”
Military documents published on the Wikileaks website this week suggested Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the Inter- Services Intelligence Directorate, secretly aided the Taliban and other militant groups the U.S. is trying to defeat in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has said the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s financial hub, was at least partly planned on its soil and it has begun a secret trial of some members of Lakshar-e- Taiba, formed to fight Indian rule in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
“We want to have the strongest possible security partnership with India and we will also continue to work with the Pakistan government to make sure it does everything it can to combat terrorist groups,” Cameron said today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in Bangalore, India, at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net.
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