Hoping to wait-out diplomatic pressures mounted on his country in wake of the terror attack on Mumbai, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that international efforts to diffuse tensions between the south Asian neighbours would work, but, normalisation would take time.
Reacting soon after sleuths investigating the Mumbai terror attack, which killed 179 people, unearthed a cross border angle, New Delhi had said the four year peace process between the two countries was in jeopardy.
"Normalisation takes time," Gilani said in an interview.
The United States has been at the forefront of intense diplomatic efforts to stop regional tensions from escalating into a full-blown crisis.
"All our common friends and responsible statesmen are playing their important role in defusing the situation and I'm pretty sure that will work," said Gilani.
With rogue elements present inside its territories repeatedly humiliating the Gilani adminis6ration and the international peace initiative Gilani said Islamabad was taking its own action against groups and people put on a UN terrorist list.
Without negating the possibility of India resorting to air strikes against militant targets Gilani said the chances of such action were remote.
"I think India is equally responsible and they won't. There is no fear of anything like that," Gilani was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Indian and US officials have accused Lashkar-e-Tayeba, a jihadi outfit of Kashmiri origin, of carrying out the Mumbai terror attack.
Reuters website attributing the information to analysts, says the Lashkar enjoys the patronage of the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Pakistan began raiding and shutting offices and schools of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) charity, linked to Lashkar, late on Thursday. Scores of activists have been detained.
The U.S. Security Council had put the JuD and its head, Hafiz Saeed, on a list of individuals and organisations linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban late Wednesday.
Saeed, who has since been placed under house arrest, is known to have founded Lashkar, before quitting it days before Pakistan banned it in 2002, he remains the head of JuD, raising funds and drawing recruits.
Saeed and the JuD have said they would go to the courts to contest restrictions imposed on their activities, the freeze of their bank accounts, and official orders forbidding them from traveling abroad.
New Delhi, understandably, is apprehensive of Islamabad claims, as Indian officials have repeatedly uncovered terror strikes in the country to terror organizations operating out of Pakistan.
Successive Pakistani administrations and government under pressure from the all-powerful military brass and its rogue international espionage wing – ISI, have harboured ‘people’ wanted for terror strikes on Indian soil. Prominent among those wanted in India, and ostensibly sheltered in Pakistan are Mumbai mafia kingpin Dawood Ibrahim and Jaish-e-Mohammad ideologue Maulana Masood Azhar.
Azhar was released by India, after Jehadi hijackers took control of an Indian Airlines passenger aircraft (IC 814), which was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The 1999 hijacking was planned by Pakistan based JeM at a time when the final venue of the jet – Kandahar, Afghanistan – was governed by the Taliban.
Admitting past inaction by omission, Gilani, according to Reuters, said the latest crackdown on anti-Indian jihadi organisations would go beyond previous ineffective bans because U.N. resolutions gave the government a stronger legal position.
"Now ... we have to act according to the United Nations resolutions," Gilani was quoted as saying.
Former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf had banned Lashkar and JeM shortly after the two groups were blamed for an audacious attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
Analysts maintain that the bans were a mere sham and Pakistan's ISI – a powerful lobby in Pakistan’s all prevailing military -- allowed the militants to thrive in order to use them to unsettle the economically progressive neighbour.
Negating reports appearing in both the Indian and international media Gilani says India will have to prove involvement of Pakistani elements in incidence of terror activities before hard action would be initiated against them.
Responding to queries Gilani reportedly said his government would act against militants operating out of his country "if Pakistan soil is being used for any such activity ... the law will take its own course."
He added that India was yet to supply hard evidence of Pakistani links to Mumbai attack, but hoped this would be forthcoming when foreign ministers from both countries meet on Sunday in Paris on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan.
Gilani reiterated Pakistan's position that anyone caught in Pakistan would be tried there also, and suspects wouldn't be handed over to India. He said: "We will go according to our own law," while adding. "There is no such thing of handing over to India."
Gilani, his predecessors and allies, despite being under a constant threat from militants operating in Pakistan have sought to play down the terror threat posed by elements inside Pakistan.
The militants were ostensibly responsible for carrying out the bloody assassination of Gilani’s party senior and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
Pakistan initially blamed Pakistan Taliban – headed by Baituallah Mehsud -- for the suicide bombing.
In September, a suicide bomber targeted the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad – Killing Nearly 60 including four foreigners.
Jehadi elements operating inside the country’s restive north western frontier have repeatedly warned Awami National Party (ANP) functionaries which heads the provincial government in the tribal area.
Several ANP functionaries have been shot down by Jehadi elements in the NWFP since Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s grandson -- Asfandyar Wali Khan led ANP rose to power in the region on the promise of bringing peace to the area.
The region is a hotbed of Islamic militancy, a fact that found credence in slain Premier Benazir Bhutto and President Asif Ali Zardari’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s address of the UN on Wednesday.
While accepting a top honour conferred on his late mother by the world body, The young Zardari urged youth in his country to reject extremist interpretations of Islam, which he defended as a religion of peace.
Recognising the presence of militants, the US has conducted missile strikes in the country’s north western frontier and is reported to have carried out a ‘unilateral ground action’ inside on at least one occasion.
Reacting soon after sleuths investigating the Mumbai terror attack, which killed 179 people, unearthed a cross border angle, New Delhi had said the four year peace process between the two countries was in jeopardy.
"Normalisation takes time," Gilani said in an interview.
The United States has been at the forefront of intense diplomatic efforts to stop regional tensions from escalating into a full-blown crisis.
"All our common friends and responsible statesmen are playing their important role in defusing the situation and I'm pretty sure that will work," said Gilani.
With rogue elements present inside its territories repeatedly humiliating the Gilani adminis6ration and the international peace initiative Gilani said Islamabad was taking its own action against groups and people put on a UN terrorist list.
Without negating the possibility of India resorting to air strikes against militant targets Gilani said the chances of such action were remote.
"I think India is equally responsible and they won't. There is no fear of anything like that," Gilani was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Indian and US officials have accused Lashkar-e-Tayeba, a jihadi outfit of Kashmiri origin, of carrying out the Mumbai terror attack.
Reuters website attributing the information to analysts, says the Lashkar enjoys the patronage of the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Pakistan began raiding and shutting offices and schools of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) charity, linked to Lashkar, late on Thursday. Scores of activists have been detained.
The U.S. Security Council had put the JuD and its head, Hafiz Saeed, on a list of individuals and organisations linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban late Wednesday.
Saeed, who has since been placed under house arrest, is known to have founded Lashkar, before quitting it days before Pakistan banned it in 2002, he remains the head of JuD, raising funds and drawing recruits.
Saeed and the JuD have said they would go to the courts to contest restrictions imposed on their activities, the freeze of their bank accounts, and official orders forbidding them from traveling abroad.
New Delhi, understandably, is apprehensive of Islamabad claims, as Indian officials have repeatedly uncovered terror strikes in the country to terror organizations operating out of Pakistan.
Successive Pakistani administrations and government under pressure from the all-powerful military brass and its rogue international espionage wing – ISI, have harboured ‘people’ wanted for terror strikes on Indian soil. Prominent among those wanted in India, and ostensibly sheltered in Pakistan are Mumbai mafia kingpin Dawood Ibrahim and Jaish-e-Mohammad ideologue Maulana Masood Azhar.
Azhar was released by India, after Jehadi hijackers took control of an Indian Airlines passenger aircraft (IC 814), which was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The 1999 hijacking was planned by Pakistan based JeM at a time when the final venue of the jet – Kandahar, Afghanistan – was governed by the Taliban.
Admitting past inaction by omission, Gilani, according to Reuters, said the latest crackdown on anti-Indian jihadi organisations would go beyond previous ineffective bans because U.N. resolutions gave the government a stronger legal position.
"Now ... we have to act according to the United Nations resolutions," Gilani was quoted as saying.
Former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf had banned Lashkar and JeM shortly after the two groups were blamed for an audacious attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
Analysts maintain that the bans were a mere sham and Pakistan's ISI – a powerful lobby in Pakistan’s all prevailing military -- allowed the militants to thrive in order to use them to unsettle the economically progressive neighbour.
Negating reports appearing in both the Indian and international media Gilani says India will have to prove involvement of Pakistani elements in incidence of terror activities before hard action would be initiated against them.
Responding to queries Gilani reportedly said his government would act against militants operating out of his country "if Pakistan soil is being used for any such activity ... the law will take its own course."
He added that India was yet to supply hard evidence of Pakistani links to Mumbai attack, but hoped this would be forthcoming when foreign ministers from both countries meet on Sunday in Paris on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan.
Gilani reiterated Pakistan's position that anyone caught in Pakistan would be tried there also, and suspects wouldn't be handed over to India. He said: "We will go according to our own law," while adding. "There is no such thing of handing over to India."
Gilani, his predecessors and allies, despite being under a constant threat from militants operating in Pakistan have sought to play down the terror threat posed by elements inside Pakistan.
The militants were ostensibly responsible for carrying out the bloody assassination of Gilani’s party senior and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
Pakistan initially blamed Pakistan Taliban – headed by Baituallah Mehsud -- for the suicide bombing.
In September, a suicide bomber targeted the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad – Killing Nearly 60 including four foreigners.
Jehadi elements operating inside the country’s restive north western frontier have repeatedly warned Awami National Party (ANP) functionaries which heads the provincial government in the tribal area.
Several ANP functionaries have been shot down by Jehadi elements in the NWFP since Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s grandson -- Asfandyar Wali Khan led ANP rose to power in the region on the promise of bringing peace to the area.
The region is a hotbed of Islamic militancy, a fact that found credence in slain Premier Benazir Bhutto and President Asif Ali Zardari’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s address of the UN on Wednesday.
While accepting a top honour conferred on his late mother by the world body, The young Zardari urged youth in his country to reject extremist interpretations of Islam, which he defended as a religion of peace.
Recognising the presence of militants, the US has conducted missile strikes in the country’s north western frontier and is reported to have carried out a ‘unilateral ground action’ inside on at least one occasion.
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