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Agencies
New Delhi, July 29: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday broke his silence over the fiasco at the recent foreign minister level talks in Pakistan, stating that the way the press conference was handled by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi could have been avoided.
Addressing a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in New Delhi , Dr Singh said that India expected the world community to promote India's position that Pakistan will not allow its soil to be used for terrorism against India.
Dr Singh said, "We believe that Pakistan should be as serious in tackling terrorism on its western border as on the eastern borders. I sincerely hope that the world community would use its good offices to promote this."
Earlier in the day, Qureshi had stated that Pakistan respected India's concerns on terrorism and the Mumbai trial, and that New Delhi should do the same by addressing Islamabad's interests like Kashmir and water sharing, for dialogue to succeed.
Meanwhile, endorsing India's stand that no cause is good enough to justify terrorism, Britain has said that it will discuss with Pakistan 'frankly, clearly and openly' on the need to reduce and eliminate terror from India.
Addressing media persons at the end of discussions with Dr Singh, visiting British PM David Cameron said, "We want to work with Pakistan to make it fight Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Afghan or Pakistan Taliban .
"Pakistan government has taken steps and it needs to take further steps to reduce terrorism in Afghanistan, India and the streets of London ."
He was replying to a question as to what the international community would do to see that Pakistan does not export terror, especially to India, as stated by him in Bangalore yesterday.
At the same time, he said Pakistan should be encouraged to take steps to see that terror is reduced.
"I think the right thing is to have discussion with Pakistan frankly, clearly and openly.
Next week, I will have discussions with President of Pakistan," he said.