Mullen's ISI comment not new to India, says Manmohan Singh

Onboard Air India One, Sep 27 (ANI): Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said Admiral Mike Mullen's comments that the militant Haqqani group is a "veritable arm" of Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, is nothing new to India.

"There is now growing awareness of the groups who indulge in these nefarious activities and we have to take notice of that, Gen Mullen has said with regards to the role of certain forces in Pakistan is also nothing new to us," said Dr. Singh in reply to a question on Mullen's comments on Haqqani and ISI.

"In fact, we were the earliest one to flag these issues. The world didn't believe us, I'm glad that world now recognizes the truth of what government and people of India has been saying about the activities of the ISI in many many years," he added.

The United States has accused the Pakistani army's powerful spy agency of supporting the Haqqani militant group, a chief driver of violence in eastern Afghanistan and a serious obstacle to U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to wind down a long war.

The U.S. blames the Haqqani militant group for an attack against its embassy and the NATO headquarters in Kabul two weeks ago.

Commenting on the proposed Teesta pact with Bangladesh, Dr. Singh said that he would seek the help of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee in resolving the issue.

"Well, we would seek the help of West Bengal Government and of Mamta Banerjee to create an environment where a meaningful viable solution to this problem is found," he said.

The issue became a controversy with Banerjee backing out from being a part of the delegation of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Dhaka.

River Teesta, which originates from Sikkim and flows to West Bengal before entering Bangladesh, was on the agenda of Dr. Singh's two-day visit, but ran into rough weather following Banerjee's reservations.

Mamata Banerjee had earlier raised her concerns over the proposed pact fearing that it would affect about 10 million people of five districts of West Bengal especially when there is no rainfall.

Responding to a question on the Libyan conflict, Dr. Singh said: "Despite what western forces have been saying there is chance of civil war in Libya and it could go Somalia way." By Naveen Kapoor (ANI)