WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Pakistan to make sure that its territory is not used to launch extremist attacks, the White House said in a joint statement on Thursday, The Express Tribune reported.
“They strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks,” the White House said.
Relations between India and Pakistan have been under stress for years now. Since British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent ended in 1947, the nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir.
For years now, India has accused Pakistan of helping militants who have battled with Indian security forces in Kashmir since the late 1980s. However, Pakistan denied the accusation and said that it only provides diplomatic and moral support for Kashmiris seeking self-determination, as per The Express Tribune.
“President Biden and Prime Minister Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen,” the joint statement said.
The founder of the militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group, Hafiz Saeed, is mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which over 160 people were killed over three days, beginning the evening of Nov 26.
“They (Biden and Modi) called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks to be brought to justice,” their joint statement said.
Moreover, in the 2016 attack on India’s Pathankot air base, seven Indian security personnel were killed, according to The Express Tribune. (ANI)