U.K.'s Brown Seeks "Pact Against Terror"
By CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad.
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday proposed a new British-Pakistani "pact against terror," as he promised to work with the country to fight terrorism which he said poses a threat to distant countries, including Britain.
"Three quarters of the most serious terrorist plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al Qaeda in Pakistan," said Brown during a joint press conference with Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari. "The time has come for action, not words."
Flying in to Islamabad after a visit to the Indian capital New Delhi, Brown's visit was widely seen as an attempt to ease frictions between the two nuclear-armed south Asian neighbors.
Relations between India and Pakistan have been tense since last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai were widely claimed by Indian officials to have been the work of Pakistan-based terrorist groups.
Pakistani leaders, including President Zardari, have vigorously denied that the attacks were linked to the Pakistani government or any institutions of government, though they have left open the possibility of linkages to hard-line groups or "non-state actors" (a reference to militant groups) in the country.
Indian officials have blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for the Mumbai attacks. The Let is an Islamic hard-line militant group which Indian officials say was set up by Pakistan to fight Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region.
Before leaving the Indian capital for Pakistan, Brown appeared to endorse the Indian claim when he said, "The group responsible for the attacks is LeT, and they have a great deal to answer for, and I hope to convey some of the views of the Indian prime minister to the president of Pakistan when I meet him."
On Sunday, in an apparently conciliatory statement towards Pakistan, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India wanted good relations with its neighbor, though he urged Islamabad to do more against militant groups on its soil.
"We want to normalize our relations with Pakistan," said Singh during a visit to Kashmir on Sunday. "There are some people in Pakistan who are always trying to launch such bloody attacks," he added.
President Zardari, speaking at the press conference with Brown, said Pakistan rejects terrorism and extremism in all its forms. "We ourselves are victims of terrorism and feel the pain of the people of Mumbai," said Zardari, whose late wife, Benazir Bhutto - Pakistan's former prime minister - was killed in an assassination plot in December 2007, thought to have been carried out by the militant Taliban movement with the backing of al Qaeda.
On Saturday, Pakistani officials claimed that two Indian jets which flew inside Pakistan's aerial territory, were forced to retreat when confronted by fighter jets from the Pakistan air force. Zardari described the event as a "technical incursion," though Indian officials denied that such an event ever took place.
A senior Pakistani government official who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity said that while both Indian and Pakistani leaders were trying to avoid a wider conflict in a tense environment, "there is a danger of an accidental encounter unless India and Pakistan quickly take their relations to relative normality."
Western diplomats in Islamabad, responding to Brown's remarks, said his visit could be seen as a warning to Pakistan to take closer charge of militant groups, but it also provided evidence of a willingness by the western world to help Pakistan overcome its security challenges.
"It is clearly a two-pronged message. Nobody wants to abandon Pakistan because Pakistan is strategically a very vital country. But there is growing concern about Pakistan's internal conditions and stability," said one western diplomat who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity.