Pak seeks sharing of findings

ISLAMABAD While an Indo-US investigation ended on Thursday after a weeklong questioning of a US citizen David Headley, the alleged operative of Lashkar-i-Taiba, Pakistani authorities still await sharing of its findings to further probe the matter, said officials on Friday. Although India and the US are not bound to share findings of investigation, however, they need to share them with Pakistan in order to unearth the myth of Mumbai attack, an official on condition of anonymity said. This correspondent attempted many time to contact Foreign Office spokesman for official version; however, he did not take up call and finally switched off his cell phone. Even a text message was dropped at his cell phone but he did not return a call till filing of this report. Meanwhile, according to a statement given by the US Department of Justice on Thursday, Indian law enforcement officials were provided direct access to interview David Coleman Headley as part of the cooperation and partnership between the United States and India in fight against international terrorism. According to the statement (this correspondent is in possession of a copy of the statement given by the US Justice Department) Mr Headley and his counsel agreed to the meetings and Headley answered the Indian investigators questions over the course of seven days of interviews. The same statement states that both India and the United States have agreed not to disclose the contents of the Headleys interviews in order to protect the confidentiality of the investigations. However, authorities of Interior Ministry want the US and India to share findings of the investigation to unearth myth of Mumbai attack, said officials when contacted on Friday. It is important to mention here that the US Assistant Secretary of States Robert Blake said a couple of days earlier that Pakistan needed to address Indias concerns regarding punishment of those involved in Mumbai attack. It is believed that the same statement has been given by a higher US official following Indo-US investigation from Hedley. In the wake of this development, defence analysts believe that terrorism would be the main item on the agenda of upcoming high-level talks between India and Pakistan. In order to further support their argument, analysts on Friday quoted statement of the US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake who said at the start of this week that the agenda of the meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and India is not Kashmir, it is in fact terrorism.

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