Pak wants proof, not just leads; Pathankot headed 26/11 way?

Pressure mounts on Pak to act; US secretary of state calls Nawaz Sharif

NEW DELHI: Hours after Pakistan sought “concrete evidence” from India regarding the Pathankot attack, US secretary of state John Kerry spoke to prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday in an apparent effort to nudge him to act against the perpetrators of the terrorist assault.

A statement from the Pakistan prime minister’s office said Sharif told Kerry during the telephone conversation late on Saturday that Pakistan is “swiftly carrying out investigations in a transparent manner and will bring out the truth”.

Sharif also reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to not allow anyone to use its soil “to conduct terror operations abroad”. Kerry extended full support and cooperation to Sharif “to find out the truth in the Pathankot terror incident”, the statement said.

Earlier, sources in Islamabad told HT that Pakistani authorities had conveyed a request for “concrete evidence” to their Indian counterparts after Sharif chaired a meeting of top officials on Friday to discuss the assault on Pathankot airbase.

The move had raised apprehensions in New Delhi that Pakistan’s probe into the incident could be going the way of the 26/11 investigation. The development came less than a week before a planned meeting of the foreign secretaries of the two sides in Islamabad on January 15 to frame the schedule and modalities for the new comprehensive dialogue process.

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