US not directly involved in Indo-Pak talks: Blake

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Mar 13 (PTI) The US has made it clear that it
is not directly involved in talks between India and Pakistan
but encourages them to resume their peace dialogue, even as it
said it wants Islamabad to rein in terror outfits like LeT.
"The pace and the scope and the timing of the dialogue is
really up to the two countries to determine. As a friend of
both of those countries, the United States, again, welcomes
those dialogues, but we're not directly involved in the talks
in any way," Assistant Secretary of State for South and
Central Asia, Robert Blake, said.
He said that one of the most important things to work on
is the issue of terrorism because it threatens not only both
India and Pakistan, but also the US.
"And, we think that a group like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which
is widely believed to have been responsible for the bombings
in Mumbai, is a terrorist group based in Pakistan that has
increasingly global ambitions and global scope, and so it's in
the interest of Pakistan to rein in the activities of LeT,"
Blake told popular Japanese newspaper 'Asahi Shimbun'.
Referring to the February 25 Foreign Secretary-level
talks between India and Pakistan in New Delhi, he termed the
parleys as important.
"I think it's significant that this is the first time
that either of those countries have had talks in either
Islamabad or New Delhi, since the November, 2008 bombings in
Mumbai. So that, in itself, is important, and I think the
dialogue between two friends of the United States is something
that we very much welcome," he said. (More) PTI