New Delhi: India has welcomed the joint statement by Pakistan and United States to fight militant groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hafiz Saeedit but ruled out any third-party mediation to resolve the issue and end stalemate in the Indo-Pak dialogue process.
Vikas Swarup, spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, said that India is always ready for resolution of all issues with Pakistan bilaterally.
"India has always desired resolution of all issues with Pakistan bilaterally through dialogue and peaceful means. It is Pakistan who has chosen to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy. And this visit shows that the international community is deeply concerned about its support to, and sponsorship of, terrorism," Swarup said.
Describing Kashmir as "a flashpoint" between India and Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, during the talks with US President Barack Obama on Thursday, said there is a need for a third party meditation to resolve the issue and end stalemate in the Indo-Pak dialogue process.
"(Currently) there are no bilateral talks (between India and Pakistan) on resolving the Kashmir issue. In that scenario there should be a third party meditation on this. If India does not accept a third party role, if there is no bilateral talks then there is a stalemate," Sharif said, adding that "this stalemate needs to be addressed".
On Sharif's promise to take effective action against terrorist, Swarup said, "This is the first time that Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Haqqani Network have been specifically mentioned in a US-Pakistan joint statement. We would naturally hope that they deliver on these commitments."
For the first time, Pakistan committed to take "effective action" against Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan that India blames for an attack by suicide commandos on Mumbai in 2008 in which 166 people died.
The joint statement also named, among other groups, the Haqqani Network that Indian and US intelligence believe was responsible for an attack on its embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul in the same year.
