Linking ISI to Mumbai attacks 'baseless propaganda': Pak

Pakistan has dismissed India's charge that the ISI was behind the Mumbai attacks as "baseless propaganda and assumptions".

Pakistan has dismissed India's charge that the ISI was behind the Mumbai attacks as "baseless propaganda and assumptions".

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"When the two Foreign Ministers are meeting, such allegations should not be made," Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said last night during an interaction with a group of Indian journalists.

Kaira said Pakistan is the biggest victim of terrorism in the region and would not back terrorist incidents against its neighbours.

"How can a Pakistani organisation or the government or any state-actor think of this?" he said.

He was referring to remarks attributed to Home Secretary G K Pillai that ISI had a "much more significant" role to play in the 26/11 plot than earlier thought.

Asked about the need for actions against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, he said the Pakistani courts would decided this issue.

He said the Indian and Pakistani courts are free and the matters of different individuals and organisations are before the Pakistani courts.

"Can the Indian government dictate to courts to pass a judgement? The (Pakistani) courts are deciding these issues and we have asked the Indian government for more concrete evidence. The courts are independent and we can't direct or overpower them," he said.

He said there is a realisation on both sides that there is a need to move forward, and that the ice has been broken after the recent meetings between the Prime Ministers of the two countries and later their Foreign Secretaries.

He said both the countries have to take along public opinion to make historic decisions.

"We can't live with each other, we can't leave each other," he said summing up the relations between the two nations.