New Delhi: The first US-India Homeland Security dialogue began here on Friday during which Union Home Minister P Chidambaram told his American counterpart Janet Napolitano that Pakistan continues to support terrorism despite growing international pressure on it.
Chidambaram, while seeking the support of Barack Obama’s administration in countering terrorism said, “Pakistan continues to support terrorism. Terror in Pakistan is an instrument of its state policy and it remains the principal challenge to both India and the US.”
During the discussion the two sides deliberated on issues of mutual interest including coastal security, mega city policing, countering illicit financing and trans-national crime, cyber security, accessing and sharing of data relating to terrorism, transfer of counter-terrorism and homeland security equipment to each other.
The Indian delegation is being led by Chidambaram, while the US side is being represented by US Secretary of Homeland Security Department Janet Napolitano, who arrived in India, Wednesday, on a four-day tour.
Chidambaram and Napolitano will later hold a joint press briefing on Friday evening at Hotel Ashoka here.
As the day-long talks coincide with the ongoing trial in Chicago of November 2008 terror strike accused Tahawwur Rana, the two sides are also expected to exchange views on ‘capacity building and mutual assistance in investigations including in the Mumbai attack’.
During the trial in Chicago, Pakistani-born American terrorist David Coleman Headley has linked Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist group that planned and executed the attack which left 166 people, including six Americans, dead.
The agenda for talks is expected to include the recent killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by elite American commandos in a hideout in Pakistan’s garrison town of Abbottabad.
According to political analysts, today’s meeting is critical in the US-India strategic dialogue and is expected to further their communication and information-sharing ties on counterterrorism and security issues.
Napolitano in a press conference before her visit said the US and India would also concentrate on cyber security.
The threat assessment in the region from various terror groups will also be on the agenda, as per reports.
With Agency Inputs
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