US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, answering a wide range of questions at her first press conference, said she expects to hear from Pakistan's leaders in the next few days whether the 26/11 attackers will be brought to justice. Highlights:
Is the US pressing India to resume talks with Pakistan?
Any decision that is made between the governments of India and Pakistan to begin talking together to explore the very difficult issues between them is up to those governments. The US, as you know, is very supportive of steps that the governments take, but we are not involved in or promoting any position.
Will Pakistan act against the LeT and Jaish, and hand over the 26/11 terrorists to India?
Based on what we have seen in the last six months, there has been a much greater effort and commitment from Pakistan to take on the terrorists. It is too early to tell the outcome of this commitment. I also believe that in a few days there will be greater awareness of whether or not there will be a commitment to bring the Mumbai attackers to heel and hopefully to justice. As for terrorist organisations that are focused on India, clearly they have to be rooted out. They must be defeated and dismantled and we have made that very clear and we will continue to do so.
Is the US asking India to be soft with Pakistan despite the anti-India terror activities on its soil?
We have a great sense of solidarity and sympathy, having gone through a terrible 9/11. We are fighting wars to end terrorism against us, our friends and allies around the world. We are very committed to working with India to make sure that together we are effective. There are different ways of doing that. Some we will work out together, some India will decide how best you want worked around. The bottom line for me is that our government is committed in the fight against terrorism and we expect everyone with whom we have relations to take strong action to prevent terrorism taking root on their soil and make sure terrorists are not trained and deployed.
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