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T V Parasuram in Washington
The United States has asked Pakistan to hand over to India the 20 terrorists wanted by New Delhi, else try and convict them in Pakistan.
"We have asked the Pakistanis to hand these terrorists over to India or even try them in their own country and convict them. That is very important. That will lead to a reduction in tensions," Harry Thomas, director in charge of south Asia at President Bush's National Security Council told Indian community leaders in Washington.
"We will work hard at it," Thomas told members of the National Federation of Indian American Associations, Association of Indians in America, Indian American Forum for Political Education and Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party, during a special briefing at the Executive Office Building of the White House.
Pointing out how the terrorist attack on the state legislature in Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Parliament changed the whole Indo-Pakistan situation, Thomas said, "Our highest priority right now is to keep India and Pakistan from going to war. A war is unthinkable. It will be devastating for the global campaign against terrorism."
"We see these attacks as not only heinous and barbarious attacks on the Indian Parliament and its leadership, but (acts) that would undermine (President) Musharraf who has turned against the jihadis," he said.
"We want to stabilise the coalition. (We don't want) India and Pakistan go to war," he insisted.
Thomas also referred to the terrorist attack on a church in Islamabad and the president's meeting with the family of the victims.
"The attack on the church was a terrible thing," he said.
Referring to US friendship with both India and Pakistan, Thomas said: "We are not in a zero sum game (that is friendship with one necessarily leads to poor relations with the other). But all roads lead to Kashmir. President Musharraf is an ally of the US. He is of tremendous assistance to us in the war against terrorism, and he is doing it because these people (Pakistani militants) are a threat to him," he said.
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