Islamabad must mend ways, says India

NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday seized upon WikiLeaks to charge Pakistan with using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. With the latest disclosures making it difficult to persist with “things-are-getting-back-to-normal” position, the external affairs ministry said that it was time that Pakistan stopped providing support and sanctuaries to terrorists.

“We have seen media reports about classified information, supposedly from US government sources, put out in public domain, on support to terrorism by ISI-Pakistan’s military intelligence agency. Sponsorship of terrorism, as an instrument of policy, is wholly condemnable and must cease forthwith. The utilisation of territory under Pakistan’s control to provide sanctuaries for recruiting and sustaining terrorist groups, and to direct terrorist activity against neighbours, must stop if our region is to attain its full potential for peaceful development,” an external affairs ministry statement said.

The documents, made available by WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions. The reports clearly indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.

The document on a possible attack on the Indian embassy was part of the 92,000-page intelligence reports. One report said the ISI was plotting an attack on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad and another, titled ‘ISI order murder and kidnappings’, spoke about the agency offering between $15,000 and $30,000 for the assassination of Indian road workers. At least 54 people, including the Indian defence attache, were killed in the suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul July 7, 2008.