A day after India and Pakistan agreed to a meeting between the two foreign secretaries before mid-July, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari asked him for “some more time” to deal with the menace of terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

Sources said there were indications from the Pakistani leadership that its provincial government in Punjab would be filing a review petition against Lahore High Court’s order freeing Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed before the two leaders meet again on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Egypt mid-July. They said this may happen as early as next week, before the foreign secretaries meet.

Returning from Russia, the Prime Minister told journalists, “We discussed India-Pakistan relations, which remain under considerable stress. The primary cause of this, as everyone knows, is the terrorist attacks against India from Pakistani territory... I conveyed to President Zardari the full extent of our expectation that the Government of Pakistan take strong and effective action to prevent the use of its territory for terrorist attacks against India, act against the perpetrators of past attacks and dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan. The President told me of Pakistan’s efforts to deal with this menace and the difficulties that they face.”

Responding to a separate question, he said, “He (Zardari) did mention to me the difficulties that Pakistan is facing in containing terrorism and asked us to bear with him, give him some more time.” There was no mention of Kashmir at anytime in the discussions, the PM clarified.

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