US:No Reason To Doubt Pakistan Denial Of Role In India Attacks
Monday December 1st, 2008 / 18h36
WASHINGTON (AFP)--The White House said Monday it had "no reason" to doubt Pakistan's public pledges to help investigate the recent deadly attacks in Mumbai and had no evidence that India's neighbor and frequent nemesis was involved. "I've heard nothing that says that the Pakistani government was involved," spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters after India blamed the three-day siege, which left at least 170 dead, including six Americans, on Pakistani militants. Asked whether President George W. Bush's administration trusted Islamabad to help investigate the attacks, Perino replied: "We have no reason not to right now. Everything that they have said in their public statements and in their private statements to us has been encouraging." Asked directly whether Pakistani intelligence - often accused of ties to extremist groups - had a hand in the attacks, Perino declined to comment. Bush had a meeting on the crisis in his "situation room" - the state-of-the-art crisis-management center in the White House basement - and plans to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she returns from India, perhaps as early as Thursday, said Perino. "The intelligence community is still assessing all aspects of the attacks, the motivation, the plotting and planning, and the operational details of it," she said. Asked about tensions between the South Asian nuclear rivals, Perino compared their often-difficult relations to a bone-dry forest in which one spark might be enough to touch off a blaze. "In some ways that whole region is like a forest that hasn't had rain in many months and one spark could cause a big, roaring fire. That's what we're trying to avoid," she said. "Obviously we want to help reduce tensions wherever possible. The good news is that the Pakistanis and the Indians have an open line of communication. This is something they didn't have just even a few years ago. "We have encouraged them to open that line of communication, and the Indians have gotten some responses from the Pakistanis that they are committed to following through on this investigation. That's a good and positive step. We need to continue to make sure that that helps," Perino added. Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=cyyj%2Fj9l%2Faz7taM%2FBIG0ZQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
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