http://mystudentrockstars.blogspot.com/

Zardari denies Pak role in Mumbai attacks

Islamabad: Rejecting claims of Pakistan's involvement in the coordinated terrorist strikes in Mumbai, President Asif Ali Zardari today said his country had offered its assistance in the investigations into the attacks.

Pakistan could not "gain anything" for such attacks and its democratic government did not believe "in such tactics", Zardari told German Ambassador Michael Koch during a meeting today.

Zardari pointed out that "India was also facing security challenges on the domestic front", said a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

The President condemned the attacks and said he had spoken to Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on phone to offer Pakistan's assistance in the investigations.

He rejected the claims of Pakistan's involvement, the statement said. Zardari said it was "his intention to get India and some other regional countries on board in the larger interest of security, stability and prosperity of the region".

Koch appreciated Pakistan's efforts and sincerity in normalizing relations with India and referred to Zardari's "courageous interview to the Indian media as well as the mature and constructive statement of Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is in India, in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist incidents".

Zardari reminded Koch that the "roots of the current situation lay in the efforts of some countries to militarily defeat the Soviet forces in Afghanistan without an exit strategy".

He said the "germs of terrorist elements were not produced in security agencies' labs in Pakistan but were created overseas and transferred to this region."