New Delhi: Ahead of the Foreign
Minister-level talks between India and Pakistan later this
month, BJP on Friday said dialogue and cross-border terrorism
cannot go hand-in-hand and favoured a rethink on India`s
policy towards its neighbour.
"Pakistan is yet to deliver in spite of repeated
evidence about complicity of terrorism from Pakistan and yet
Manmohan Singh is determined for a dialogue," BJP Chief
spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
He sought a clarification from the UPA government about
its policy towards Pakistan.
"Pakistan is the epicentre of world terror from where
most of the terrorist attacks against India are encouraged,
planned and executed with the active patronage of the ISI and
elements of the Army establishments," Prasad said.
India`s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna had
stated after the triple blasts in Mumbai on Wednesday that the
Foreign Minister-level talks between the two countries
scheduled for the end of this month, would be held as planned.
Though no evidence of Pakistan`s involvement in the
blasts has come to light, BJP has maintained that the attack
is a result of the UPA government`s soft policy towards
Pakistan. Senior BJP leader L K Advani had said yesterday that
Pakistan`s intelligence agency ISI, which is allegedly
sponsoring terrorists, should be declared a terror group.
"Singh (PM) is making a very fundamental mistake for
which the country is paying and will continue to pay a very
heavy price? to separate its policy towards Pakistan and its
counter terrorism strategy. These two are inseparable," Prasad
said.
The BJP leader insisted that terrorists and their
patrons see India as a soft target because "it imposes no cost
on them".
"They know that they will not be seriously hunted down
and even if they are, vote bank politics would bail them out,"
Prasad said.
PTI
