TNN

New Delhi, Feb 6: India on Thursday again came down heavily on Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks and the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul saying that the perpetrators of these attacks were "clients and creations" of ISI.

In a speech at French Institute of Foreign Relations, Paris, foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon said arms sale to Pakistan unrelated to the fight against terrorism would make consolidation of democracy even more difficult in Pakistan.

"Among global issues, international terrorism remains a major threat to peace and stability. We in India are next to the epicenter of international terrorism in Pakistan. We have directly suffered the consequences of linkages and relationships among terrorist organisations, their support structures, official sponsors and funding mechanisms, which transcend national borders but operate within them," said Menon.

"For India, the most graphic recent instances were the bombing of our embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008 and the Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008. In each case, the perpetrators planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and the organisers were and remain clients and creations of the ISI. Two months after the Mumbai attacks, and one month after we presented a dossier of evidence linking the attacks to elements in Pakistan, we still await a response from the Pakistani authorities, and prevarication continues," he added.

Saying that ceasefire violations, cross-border infiltration and terrorist attacks from Pakistan unfortunately came after a sustained effort by both the countries to improve relations, Menon called upon the international community to help improve the situation.

"Given the fragile and unfinished nature of the polity beside us, there is much that the international community can do to help. For instance, arms sales to Pakistan totally unrelated to the fight against terrorism or extremism are like whisky to an alcoholic, a drug reinforcing an addiction, skewing the internal political balance, and making the consolidation of democracy more difficult," said Menon.