Islamabad: While political leaders in the country and some sections of the media wasted no time in pointing fingers towards ‘foreign involvement’, read India, in the series of Lahore blasts, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has admitted that it has no solid evidence to prove the assertion.
Interacting with reporters at the Multan airport, Qureshi said it would be ‘premature’ to blame India for blasts, in which at least 55 people were killed over 100 injured on Friday.
“The evidence of direct Indian involvement is not found so far,” Qureshi said.
Commenting on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Qureshi rejected the notion that New Delhi wanted to involve Riyadh to play the role of a mediator between India and Pakistan.
“I am invited by Saudi Arabia and I am due to meet with my Saudi counterpart on April 3. The situation would soon be clear and we would get details of Manmohan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia,” The Nation quoted Qureshi, as saying.
He said Pakistan wants composite dialogue with India to resume soon, and that it has no qualms if it involves a third party in talks and added that New Delhi itself has always opposed any third party’s role in deliberations over the Kashmir issue.
Commenting on India’s continuous demands that Pakistan must do more against the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, Qureshi said Islamabad, time and again, has clarified that it is doing whatever it can and has put the plotters on trial.
“We have told them (India) that courts in Pakistan are independent, just like India,” he said.
ANI
First Published: Sunday, March 14, 2010, 13:24