Indian tough talkers subvert Manmohans agenda: Pak

Earlier,Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir accused the Indian establishment and armed forces of trying to subvert the agenda of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by making statements which were a matter of concern.

Any country that attempts to mimic the unilateral act of the US will find it has made a basic miscalculation,Bashir said at the first news conference by a senior Pakistani official on the killing of the al Qaeda chief.

We see a lot of bravado in our own region. There have been statements that have come from across (the border),by senior people from the military and air force,which state that this can be repeated. We feel that sort of misadventure or miscalculation would result in a terrible catastrophe, he said.

Bashir made the remarks in the wake of the statement by Army chief Gen V K Singh that Indian forces had the capability to mount raids like the pre-dawn assault by US special forces that resulted in the killing of bin Laden.

Stressing on the military strength of Pakistan,Bashir said if any country were to act on the assumption that it has a right to unilateralism of any sort,it will find itself indulging in misadventure. There should be no doubt that Pakistan has adequate capacity to ensure its own defence, he said.

Responding to a query on the remarks of Indian military officials about mounting a raid against leaders of Pak-based terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba,Bashir said such comments are a matter of concern.

I only see them as symptomatic of trends and tendencies within the Indian establishment and their armed forces to subvert the agenda of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. I dont think the Indian leadership would really subscribe to this.

He highlighted the need for a serious constructive approach and said Pakistan was engaged in a process of

dialogue with India.

We have had good meetings recently between the Home and Interior Secretaries of the two countries on counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics. We have done everything that we can and we are continuing to do in terms of cooperating to avert the possibilities of terror between our two countries.

Bashir even questioned whether the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks could be described as an intelligence failure or

security failure on the part of India.

In New Delhi,South Block chose not to react officially but maintained that Pakistan will now have to walk the talk on the anti-terror crackdown. South Block sources acknowledged that the US-style military operation was not an option. REZAUL H LASKAR