Pakistan denies spies behind Indian embassy attack

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan angrily rejected a New York Times report on Friday that said U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded members of Pakistan's spy agency helped plan the suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul last month.

"Rubbish," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi responded when asked to comment on the report while in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, where South Asian leaders were attending a regional summit.

"Such news items keep appearing," Qureshi said.

The New York Times this week reported that a senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confronted Pakistan earlier this month with evidence of ties between members of its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and al Qaeda-linked militants, as well as their involvement in the Kabul bomb attack.

Two senior Indian diplomats were among 58 people killed in the July 7 attacks.

The newspaper reported on Thursday that unidentified U.S. government officials said communications had been intercepted between Pakistani agents and militants who carried out the attack.

"No one has given any evidence to us. It's just an allegation," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told Reuters from Colombo.

However, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, in remarks aired by Pakistan television on Thursday, said U.S. officials had accused ISI members of tipping off al Qaeda-linked militants before U.S. missile attacks on targets in Pakistani tribal lands.

Pakistan's new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who returned from his first visit to the United States on Thursday, was due to meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in Colombo on Saturday.

The meeting of the two leaders is taking place against the backdrop of strained relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

The Kabul attack, breaches of a 2003 ceasefire between Indian and Pakistan forces in the disputed Kashmir region, and media speculation of Pakistani links to a series of bomb attacks on Indian cities have all contributed to the worsening atmosphere.

India said the 4 ½ year-old peace process was "under stress" following the attack on its Kabul embassy.

Before his departure for Colombo, Gilani said Pakistan wanted the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to become an effective grouping and wanted to bolster relations with all of its neighbors.

"We have bilateral relations with all neighbors. We want good relations with India, with Afghanistan, with all neighbors," he told reporters.

(Editing by Paul Tait)