Pakistan siege underlines terror danger: India PM

By Y.P. Rajesh

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Pakistan's confrontation with militants at a mosque in Islamabad has brought home the dangers of terrorism to that country and India wishes it success in fighting the menace, India's prime minister said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's comments came as Pakistan struggled to end the face-off at the Lal Masjid after clashes that began on Tuesday with militant Taliban-style students holed up inside left 19 dead.

Singh told a group of women journalists he wished Pakistan "godspeed in tackling the dangerous situation" arising out of the fighting at the mosque in the national capital, NDTV quoted him as saying.

"Pakistan is seeing terrorism for the first time. What is happening in Pakistan, thinking people have realized fundamentalism is perverse and dangerous to society," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted him as saying.

India has long accused Pakistan of aiding and fomenting separatist militants fighting New Delhi's rule in Kashmir and launching attacks elsewhere across the country.

This policy could end up hurting Pakistan as Islamist militant groups there could turn against Islamabad, Indian officials and analysts have said in the past.

However, in a departure from years of acrimonious finger-pointing, India last year said Pakistan was also a victim of terrorism and formed a joint counter-terrorism panel as part of a peace process.

But that process had slowed down because Pakistan was "preoccupied", Singh was quoted as saying.

"The dialogue has slowed down, not because of us, but because of the situation in Pakistan," he said.

Last month, Singh said he had no dates to visit Islamabad although he had accepted an invitation because he did not want to "complicate problems" Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf faced over domestic politics.

Top home ministry officials of the two countries began two-day security talks in New Delhi on Tuesday but made little progress before they were cut short due to the trouble over the mosque in Islamabad.

The India-Pakistan peace process was launched after the nuclear-armed neighbors came close to the brink of their fourth war in 2002. The process's advances have been limited, particularly in relation to the central dispute over Kashmir.