Talks with Pak not at gunpoint, says Tharoor

In an interview telecast on CNN-IBN on Saturday, Qureshi said India was being narrow-minded in not coming to the table for talks. “I think you (India) are being myopic. You are being narrow-minded. You have to look at the boarder picture and the broader picture demands cooperation and not confrontation,” he said at Port of Spain, where he is leading the Pakistani delegation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the absence of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. He also said that India had provided “inadequate” evidence to prosecute Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, who India has named the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

In Delhi, Tharoor retorted that any evidence that had to be unearthed against Saeed had to be done in Pakistan itself. 

“Surely,  the evidence is available in their country, where the man has been conducting his nefarious activities. So, it seems to me that in saying that the evidence is not enough, the Pakistani government is essentially saying that its own investigative capabilities are not what they should be,” Tharoor said here. On the demand to restart talks, Tharoor said there had to be adequate progress by Pakistan for India to return to the table.