Mumbai blasts to figure at foreign secy talks with Pak

Joint mechanism's success to depend on Pak action, says Menon.

India's new foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon today said India would confront Islamabad with proof that militants trained by ISI and based in Pakistan were behind the July 11 blasts in Mumbai.

Menon said the matter would be taken up at the foreign secretary-level talks next month.

Much, he said, would depend on Pakistan's attitude and action on the issue of terrorism. "The success of the new joint mechanism will depend on how Pakistan acts against terror," Menon said after taking over as foreign secretary today.

India wants Pakistan to "not only talk but take action against terrorism on the ground" as Islamabad will be judged by its actions and not words, according to Menon.

Rubbishing Islamabad's denial that ISI and Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) were involved in the Mumbai bombings, he said, "This (involvement of ISI and LeT in the blasts) is something we will certainly take up with the government of Pakistan in view of the new evidence."

"We will judge them not by immediate reaction or verbal statements but by what they actually do about terrorism," he said.

Referring to Mumbai Police's statement yesterday, he said, "You have heard what is the evidence that has been found in Mumbai and it seems to me logical that the (joint) mechanism has to deal with this kind of evidence," he said.

"We will judge its (mechanism's) success or failure by how it deals with terrorism," Menon, who was the High Commissioner to Pakistan before being appointed as foreign secretary, said.

Menon said terrorism had always been a "big issue" with Islamabad.

Yesterday, Mumbai Police Commissioner AN Roy, claiming to have cracked the case, had said that ISI's involvement had clearly emerged in the investigations. Nearly 180 people were killed and over 800 injured in the serial blasts.

The Pakistan Foreign Office had immediately rejected Mumbai Police's claim which, it said, was "unsubstantiated" and "baseless."

On Indo-US nuclear deal, Menon said it had the support of both democrats and republicans and the Congress would be seeing it through, despite the fact that the Senate elections were due soon.