RICE ASKS FULL COOPERATION FROM PAK IN PROBING MUMBAI ATTACKS

Washington, Dec 2 (PTI) Ahead of her visit to India
following the terror attacks in Mumbai that claimed around 200 lives, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked the Pakistan government to come with full cooperation in the ongoing investigations of the brutal strikes.

At a Round Table in London, Rice refused to speculate on how the government of India will respond but said that it is "incumbent" on Pakistan to realise the seriousness of what has happened.

"...I?m not going to speculate on what the Indian
government may choose to do. But the question is: How do you
best deal with the fact of the attack, the consequences of it,
and prevention of future attacks? And the best way to deal
with that would be through cooperation between Pakistan and
India, and that's what we are encouraging. And in fact, this
is a time for absolute transparency and for letting evidence
lead where it may," Rice said in a media interaction.

Responding to a query on the possibility of Pakistan's
cooperation in the probe, the top State Department official
said, "it depends on what actually did happen here. But it
also is incumbent upon Pakistan to realise the seriousness of
what happened here. First of all, let's remember that this
isn't the first attack.

"Bad things happened in Afghanistan, to India as well.

Secondly, this attack was broad and pretty brazen. And it
clearly was meant to target not just ? not just to terrorise,
but in fact, going as it did after Mumbai, an Indian financial
centre, hotels that foreigners frequented, to try and shake
the confidence of the international community and the safety
of India," Rice said.

"And it also, of course, went after Americans and it went
after Brits because they were Americans and Brits, and
Israelis as well. So this is a qualitatively different ?
they're all serious, but this is a qualitatively different set
of circumstances than we have seen in the past, and it
requires a qualitatively different response on the part of
Pakistan," she added.


Emphasising the importance of Pakistan's cooperation in
fighting terrorism, Rice said: "The most important thing that
can happen now is to have absolute commitment on the part of
everyone to investigate what happened and bring people to
justice for what they did, and in doing so, perhaps, to also
learn of any further activities that this group was ? might
have been involved in.


"And I know that that cooperation is going on, but it?s
also going to require the cooperation of Pakistan. And the
Pakistani government has said that -- President Zardari has
said rightly that extremism in any form is a threat to
Pakistan, as well as to India," she said.


"And I fully expect, therefore, the commitment of
Pakistan to absolute transparency and wherever the leads go to
completely follow them up. And that's just going to be
absolutely necessary," the top State Department official said.


"So that really is the issue now, and we continue to hope
that the Indian and Pakistani governments will maintain the
open lines of communication that they've thus far had. And we
will continue to impress upon them the importance of those
open communications, but this is a very serious time for
commitment to getting to the bottom of this," she added.


Rice also noted that the intention of terrorists was to
destabilise peace in the region. "let's remember that wherever
they're operating from, they are extremists and terrorists who
have ? who want to destabilise not just India, but also many
of them want to destabilise Pakistan," she said.


"I don?t want to jump to any conclusion about precisely
how this happened. But there are two reasons to this. First,
to be really transparent, to be really tough on this and very
committed, number one, because people need to be brought to
justice. But equally importantly, as we learned with terror
incidents of this sort, there are often wider efforts or
intentions to do other things," she said.


Endorsing India's call for full cooperation in the probe
Rice said, "what the Indians have been saying, and we are in
full agreement with them, is what they want most right now,
what they believe is absolutely critical, is to find out, with
full cooperation from Pakistan, how this happened and what
these people were planning and how they carried it out."

"I think the Indians also are spending a good deal of
time looking at their own capacity to prevent attack, and we
will try to be helpful there... The fact is that the
terrorists only have to be right once; you have to be right
100 percent of the time. And that?s a tough fight," Rice
said according to a transcript released by the State
Department here.


Talking about her visit to India, Rice said that she is
going there to show solidarity "but also to talk about what
can be done, and should be done, to get to the bottom of the
issue.


"...what it requires of Pakistan is to let the evidence
fall where it falls and to react accordingly. Ultimately,
Pakistan needs to be seen as a place that has a handle on
extremism if it is to grow and prosper and have the good
relations around the world that it's seeking," Rice said.


Talked about India's obligation, Rice said, "India also
has obligations, which I'm sure that they will exercise, to
also be transparent and to work closely with the Pakistanis
and with the United States and with Great Britain". PTI