I was ready to visit India after Mumbai attacks: ISI chief

NEW DELHI: Inter-services intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha reportedly said that he was willing to travel to New Delhi to help in the Mumbai attacks investigation.

According to Pakistani newspaper 'The Nation', ISI chief Ahmed Shujaa Pasha maintained that there will not be a war. "We are distancing ourselves from conflict with India, both now and in general".

The ISI chief said that the Indians have failed to provide evidence to support their claims that Pakistani groups sponsored by the ISI were behind the Mumbai attacks.

"They have given us nothing, no numbers, no connections, no names. This is regrettable," Pasha said.

The General also said, ���The Indians, after the attacks, were deeply offended and furious, but they are also clever. We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know fully well that terror is our enemy, not India."

"It is completely clear to the army chief and I that this government must succeed. Otherwise we will have a lot of problems in this country," he said. "The result would be problems in the west and the east, political destabilisation and trouble with America," he stressed.

Pakistan had earlier denied sending the inter-services intelligence chief to India in connection with the probe into the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, saying a representative of the spy agency would be sent instead of him.

If he had done so, Pasha would have been the first director general of the ISI to travel to India, a visit that would have been a minor sensation.

The decision was made at a meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari and Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the powerful army. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also joined the meeting, which was held at the presidency.

"A representative of the ISI will visit India, instead of its Director General Lt Gen Shuja Pasha, to help in investigating the Mumbai terrorism incident," a spokesman for the Prime Minister's House said.