Washington: Terming Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's scheduled visit to India as "very constructive",
US has said it does not want any new strains in Indo-Pak ties
over the USD 10 million bounty offered by it for LeT founder
Hafiz Saeed.
"We think his (Zardari) visit to India actually is very
constructive, and we're all for it," State Department
spokesperson Mark Toner told reporters here.
Zardari is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh over lunch in New Delhi on April 8 before making a
private visit to the 13th century Sufi shrine of Khwaja
Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer.
"We certainly want to see... to us, it's a win-win
situation when Pakistan and India are engaging in dialogue,
are talking to each other, and are building better
cooperation," Toner said.
America, he said, does not want the recent announcement
of the bounty on Saeed to have any affect on the meeting
between Zardari and Singh.
"We certainly don't want it to impact on his visit to
India," he said.
Saeed is wanted over the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai that
killed 166 people including six Americans.
The Defa-e-Pakistan Council, a conglomerate of over 40
hardline and extremist groups, yesterday asked Zardari to
cancel his trip to India to protest the USD 10 million bounty
offered by the US for Saeed.
PTI
First Published: Friday, April 06, 2012, 09:19