Upbeat over his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said he did raise the issue of terrorism with him and made it clear that Pakistan has to control the menace as a "pre-condition" for moving forward on the composite dialogue process.
"It (terrorism) did come up in our discussion and I mentioned unambiguously to President Musharraf that the starting point of the whole dialogue is the commitment given by Pakistan in the January 6 statement that territory under Pakistan's control will not be used for terrorist activities," Singh said, winding up his official engagements on the last leg of his nine-day visit to Britain and the US.
Significantly, the joint statement issued after the first-ever hour-long meeting between the two leaders on Friday did not refer to terrorism.
"We cannot discuss any substantive issue and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) if terrorist acts are not controlled... Therefore there should be no doubt that this is the pre-condition for moving forward," Singh told a press conference in New York, adding the Pakistan President "recognised" that this is the situation.