Pakistan wants India tension defused after attack

By Robert Birsel

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India must act to defuse serious tension that has flared after the militant assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, Pakistan's foreign minister said on Saturday.

India has blamed "elements" from Pakistan for the coordinated assault on its financial capital raising the prospect not only of a breakdown in peace efforts between the old rivals, but of renewed confrontation across their border.

Pakistan condemned the assault as a "barbaric act of terrorism" and denied any involvement by state agencies.

It has vowed to cooperate in fighting terrorism but it backtracked on a decision to send the chief of its spy agency to India to help with the investigation in a move likely to revive questions about who is in charge of the shadowy organization.

The attacks on two luxury hotels and other sites in Mumbai came after Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated last year, had made bold moves to improve ties with India.

But Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference after a special cabinet meeting the Mumbai attacks had put pressure on ties.

"These are sensitive moments," Qureshi said. "The situation is serious, let us not fool ourselves ... when the people in India feel this is 9/11 for India."

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence in 1947 and went to the brink of a fourth after a December 2001 militant attack on India's parliament that India also linked to Pakistan.

"It is in Pakistan's interests and in India's interests to defuse the situation. Lowering of tension is essential," he said.

Zardari, battling Islamic radicals at home, told Indian television he would cooperate in the investigation.

"If any evidence comes of any individual or group in any part of my country, I shall take the swiftest of action in the light of evidence and in front of the world," he told CNN-IBN.

Pakistan is seen as vital to U.S.-led effort to defeat al Qaeda and bring stability to its western neighbor, Afghanistan, but a senior security official said war on terror would not be a priority if tension escalated on the eastern border, with India.

"If something happens on that front, the war on terror won't be our priority," said the official, who declined to be identified. "We'll take out everything from the western border."

The security official also denied the involvement of any Pakistani institution in the Mumbai attack and said the next day or two would be crucial in assessing India's response.

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