Pak, terrorism dominate Indo-UK talks

British Prime Minister David Cameron ended his India visit after some serious Pakistan bashing along with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.

The UK-India talks in New Delhi on Thursday ended with Pakistan and terrorism topping the agenda. The Indian Prime Minister also commented on Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's statements during the recent Indo-Pak talks in Islamabad. At the joint briefing withCameron, the focus was Pakistan where Singh slammed Qureshi for the disastrous manner in which the last Indo-Pak foreign ministers' dialogue ended.

"The press conference by Pakistani Foreign Minister could have been avoided because it detracts from a large number of agreements reached between our foreign ministers. Invitation to Mr Qureshi to visit India will be taken and we will sooner or later be able to restore the dialogue to a proper sense," said Singh.

He also kept the focus on terrorism and Pakistan's perfidy in backing terror groups.

"There is agreement that no cause is good enough to justify the resort to terrorism. I hope that the Government of Pakistan will honour its commitment to not allow its territory to be used for acts of terrorism against India," he added.

Cameron, too, said that terrorism was the biggest threat to the world.

"Reality of terrorism is there in the enormous losses in Mumbai and London, and we see every week in Afghanistan. In Pakistan the existence of terror groups is there. Need to work within Pakistan to crack down on terror groups that cause so much suffering," said Cameron.

Cameron's backing away ever so subtly from Wednesday's broadside against Islamabad is also a signal of his determination to involve Pakistan in plans that would see the withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan by 2014. The plan evidently has US President Barack Obama's approval.

Pakistan was definitely the elephant in the root as the Indian and British prime ministers came out for the press conference. It wasn't just the rap Singh administered to Qureshi but also the reiteration byCameron that it is not acceptable for Pakistan to have terror groups operating on its soil.