Pakistan regrets India’s blame game

Pakistan on Thursday regretted India’s blame game over the Pathankot attack.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry’s comments came a day after Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar said that Pakistani non-state actors were involved in the airbase attack, but added “they couldn’t have carried it out without the support of the Pakistani establishment”.

“Cooperation and understanding is need of the hour to take the investigation into Pathankot incident forward,” Foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said.

On the intervening night of January 1-2, six alleged Jaish-e-Mohammad operatives infiltrated the Air Force station in Pathankot and killed seven Indian security personnel. It took India almost 80 hours to neutralise the terrorists.

India had blamed the banned militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, for the attack. Days later, Pakistani authorities arrested the chief of the group, Masood Azhar, and some other members and also sealed several of its religious schools.

The police in Gujranwala in Punjab province also registered cases against six unidentified people in connection of the attack that had again hit relations between the neighbours. India postponed official talks with Pakistan after the attack.

The foreign ministry spokesman while commenting on the Indian defence minister’s statement accusing Pakistan of the attack, he said blame game on the part of India is unfortunate and unhelpful.

“Joint investigation team has been formed and modalities are being worked out for its visit to India,” he said.

He said Pakistan has denounced terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and believes all nations need to collaborate with each other to defeat this menace.

To a question, the spokesperson said Pakistan and India are working on the dates for foreign secretary-level talks.

The talks were scheduled to take place last month, but were delayed due to the attack.

The spokesman confirmed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will attend nuclear security summit in Washington later this month.

Meanwhile, Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz has impressed upon the United States not to contribute to strategic imbalance in South Asia by helping India. He was addressing members of the Council on Foreign Relations on “Prospects of Pakistan-US Relations,” in Washington. The Advisor expressed satisfaction over the Strategic Dialogue process between Pakistan and the United States. Mr Aziz assured that Pakistan would provide the necessary support for an Afghan owned and Afghan led peace initiative in Afghanistan.