On board Air India One, May 28: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday said that a “strong, stable and peaceful Pakistan” was in the interest of India.

"Let me say that what happens in our neighbourhood matters a great deal. I have always maintained that a strong, stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of our country,” Dr Singh said.

"I hope that Pakistan recognizes monster of terrorism which they unleashed at one time, is hurting them as much as it can hurt our country. And it is in this background that we have to look at our relations with Pakistan," he said.

  Asking Pakistan to control “jihadi groups that target India,” the Prime Minister underlined that it was "in Pakistan's own interest that they must help us in tackling the problem of “terror in our region".

He, however, added that despite knowing the terror machinery working against India in Pakistan, he believed that "good relations between India and all its neighbours are very desirable and indeed essential for us in South Asia to realise our development ambitions"

Reacting to David Coleman Headley's disclosures about the ISI's role in 26/11 Mumbai attack, "This trial of David Headley has not brought out anything new that we did not know."

"The trial is still on, we will study it when the trial is completed. But as I said, it has not revealed anything which we did not know," he said.

He also aired India's concerns over the attack at a naval base in Karachi that has stirred anxieties about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Dr Singh said, "The more I see of what is happening in Pakistan the more I am convinced that Pakistan's leadership must now wake up, and must recognize that the terror machine they have or at least some elements in the country patronise, is not working to anybody's advantage," he said.

"As Pakistan's neighbour, we have great worries about the terror machine that is still intact in Pakistan,” he added.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 May 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 IST