Talks uncertain as India says Pakistan must first hunt militants

A Reuters report quoted senior Indian intelligence officials as saying “lack of inter-agency cooperation may have hobbled the security response”. Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who had accompanied Sharif to Colombo tweeted that Pakistan PM had personally told him that stern action on the perpetrators of the Pathankot attack would come within 72 hours.

India awaits “prompt and decisive” action from Pakistan against the perpetrators of the Pathankot attack, the government said on Thursday, for the first time linking the action to Foreign Secretary talks between the two countries scheduled for January 15. India wants friendly relations with all its neighbors including Pakistan.

There are indications that some of the materials used by the attackers were made in Pakistan, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said.

He also noted, “The Government of Pakistan has also said that they’re not going to discriminate between terrorist groups as part of its counterterrorism operations”.

“Specific and actionable information in this regard has been provided to Pakistan”, read an official statement. “He should have taken opposition parties into confidence before taking such a step”, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said when asked about Nawaz Sharif calling up Prime Minister Modi to give assurance that they would act against those responsible for Pathankot attack.

Sharif also directed NSA Nasser Khan Janjua to remain in contact with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval in a bid to keep renewed dialogue on track.

The foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India are likely to meet in Islamabad on January 15. We were prepared to start a comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan and we were working towards that when the national security advisors of the two countries met in Bangkok. “The meeting made a decision to speed up work on the leads given by India”, he said. India claimed that the attacks were carried out by two Pakistan-based terror groups, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, a charge that Pakistan denied. “We’ll certainly defer to Pakistani authorities to determine their own timelines and their own deadlines”.

Since, the Pathankot attack surfaced, speculations were mushrooming over, whether a talk between India and Pakistan were any more possible or not. “The immediate issue in front of us is Pakistan’s response to the terrorist attack”.

Seven Indian troops and six militants were killed in the gun battle.

Both countries should realize the regional dimensions and needs and India should avoid to derail peace process because with full coordination between both countries, they can defeat this monster of terrorism, he said.