Gilani meets Karzai, discusses Indian embassy attack issue

After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conveyed his concern over the Indian embassy attack in Kabul, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Colombo and discussed the incident for which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has been blamed.

Karzai, who was the first to hold the Pakistani spy agency responsible for the July 7 suicide attack on the Indian mission, is understood to have told Gilani the reasons for his assertion.

After Singh raised the issue with Gilani during their meeting on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit on Saturday, the Pakistani PM assured Singh that he would conduct an independent investigation to ascertain whether or not the ISI was involved in the embassy attack. In this regard, Gilani had told Singh that he would meet Karzai to get the details.

The Pakistan prime minister had also told media-persons on Saturday night that Karzai had blamed the ISI "within an hour" of the incident and he would like to know the basis for his contention.    

The suicide attack in which nearly 60 people, including four Indians, were killed has cast a shadow over the Indo-Pak dialogue process with New Delhi saying that the incident along with ceasefire violations and rising infiltration had created difficulties in bilateral ties.