Clinton stresses on the need to prevent Mumbai type attack

WASHINGTON: Meeting for the first time, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon were agreed on the need to take all necessary steps to make sure that there is no repeat of a Mumbai-type attack.

During the meeting on Monday at the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters, the first high-level contact for India with the Obama Administration, Clinton also said the two countries needed to ramp up their cooperation in bilateral and global issues including climate change and counter-terrorism.

The State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood during his daily press briefing told reporters today that the Mumbai terror attack figured during the bilateral meeting. Six American nationals were among the 183 persons killed in the attack last November.

Shortly before the meeting, the US pressed Pakistan to do more to bring to "justice" the people responsible for the carnage.

"Well, I think overall our assessment has been that Pakistan has been providing some helpful information, but clearly, you know, more can be done," Wood said.

"What's critical here is that we do everything in our power to try to bring the folks who were responsible for those attacks to justice," he added.

Referring to the discussion that figured up at Clinton-Menon meeting on Mumbai, Wood said: "I think the way they discussed the issue was the fact that we've got to do what we can to try to prevent these types of attacks from happening again."