Pakistan, India must engage in dialogue to defuse tensions: US

The United States has encouraged both Pakistan and India to pursue and engage in direct dialogue that is aimed at reducing tensions. Briefing the newsmen, US States Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said Pakistan and India really stood to benefit from the normalisation of relations and practical cooperation between them. “We encourage both India and Pakistan to pursue and engage in direct dialogue that is aimed at reducing tensions,” he said. Talking about the war on terror, Toner said that Pakistan was fighting a serious and sustained campaign against violent extremism. “We do believe that they’re making progress and taking steps to counter terrorist violence, but at the same time we’ve been very clear that they need to target all militant groups, including those that target Pakistan’s neighbours, and close all safe havens,” he went on to say. “Our focus with Pakistan is to enhance their capability to deal with a terrorist threat on their soil,” Mark Toner said, adding that “we want to see Pakistan better able to respond to terrorism threat.” Toner, to a question regarding recent PakistanRussian military exercises, said that they were not part of ‘great game’. “We’ve long said with regards to Pakistan, with regards to India, with regards to the region, there’s no zero-sum game here,” he added. “We are pursuing very close relations with India. We have a deep and broad bilateral relationship and multilateral relationship, but – or work our multilateral issues with India. They are the world’s largest democracy and we share, I think, a very similar vision of the world. And we obviously have very close trade and economic ties with India, and also that extends to security cooperation,” he said in reply to another query.