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The United States says it encourages a dialogue between India and Pakistan despite revelations of known links between Pakistani spy agency ISI and the Taliban as it is in the interest of all three nations.
"We are simply encouraging Pakistan and India to pursue a dialogue that we think is fundamentally in the interest of both countries," State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters on Thursday.
It was revealed that ISI was funding Taliban to kill Indians in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan's relationship with elements that morphed into the Taliban go back to the Soviet occupation were very well known," he said commenting on the secret documents leaked by WikiLeaks.
Earlier, on 25th July 2010, WikiLeaks had released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 - 2010.
"They're known to the United States, they're known to India, and they're known to Afghanistan," Crowley said when asked if the US had shared with India intelligence about ISI's relationship with the Taliban before it asked India to go in for talks with Pakistan.
Asked if the US would now be putting more pressure on Pakistan to bring the culprits behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Crowley said "It is not a new revelation."
He also said, "Our concerns about the ISI and its contacts with some of these elements have been well known.”
"But we are focused on the decisive action that Pakistan must take to deal with the threat that is within its borders and has, in the last year or two, become clear that it's a threat to Pakistan, and we are satisfied with the aggressive action that Pakistan has taken in response," Crowley said.
"We want to see that aggressive action continues," he said. "Where we have concerns about ongoing contacts, we will not hesitate to raise them with Pakistan," Crowley repeated.
"But Pakistan will have to play a role in this, as will other countries in the region," said Phillip Crowley.
As for the India-Pakistan dialogue, Crowley said, "Well, quite simply, we encourage dialogue between India and Pakistan because it's in the interest of both countries and the interest of the United States.
"These countries that have gone to war multiple times in the past 60 years need to build their own relationship, need to find ways beyond military conflict to remove tensions in the relationship, (and) gain a greater understanding that can be of substantial benefit to both the people of India and the people of Pakistan," he added.
