NEW DELHI, Sept 6: Indo-US collaboration against the use of Pakistani soil for cross-border terrorism will be topmost on the agenda of Home Minister P Chidambaram during his four-day visit to Washington and New York beginning on Monday.
Home Ministry officials said Chidambaram will meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and National Security Advisor James Jones besides key officials of US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This will be Chidambaram’s second foreign trip after taking over as home minister last December. Last month, he went to Bhutan.He had to cancel his proposed January visit to the US after the 26/11 terror strikes and then to handle the situation arising out of the agitation by truck operators and officers of oil companies. Officials here said that with the gunning down of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Abu Jindal by the Jammu and Kashmir police on Friday, the Home Ministry was armed with fresh evidence against the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit.
“The talks will centre around the sharing of more information with the US authorities about the LeT’s involvement as well as the progress in the investigations,” said a ministry official. Chidambaram, who will be accompanied by officers from the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) - India’s external intelligence agency, and from the Home Ministry, will also see the working of the New York police department. On the eve of his visit, Chidambaram gave an exhaustive interview to Al-Jazeera news channel where he accused Pakistan of deliberately holding back investigations into the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks despite concrete evidence against the conspirators being presented linking LeT chief Hafiz Saeed to the carnage. (IANS)
