Pak issue needs coordinated international effort: Experts

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The week began with the terrorist attack on the Lahore Police Academy and ended with the Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh meeting in London. Both of them point towards the connection between terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, today we discuss this twin subjects in context of President Obama's new Afghanistan-Pakistan (AFPAK) strategy.  

Joining us from Pakistan is Former Secretary of Defence Production General Talat Masood and Former High Commissioner to India as well as Ambassador to Afghanistan Aziz Ahmad Khan. Joining us from Washington, the well-known American scholar on South Asia Professor Stephen Cohen, and here in studio in Delhi, two former foreign secretaries--Former Ambassador to America, Lalit Mansingh and Former Ambassador to Russia, Kanwal Sibal.

Lalit Mansingh said the situation is very serious in Pakistan and unless there is a coordinated international effort, we are not going to see this issue resolved. While the other experts agree with him on the issue.

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: Baitullah Mehsud has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Police Training Academy in Lahore, is this proof that the Taliban have now extended their network of terror from Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Swat and parts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) straight into the heart of Punjab?

Masood: Yes, that is very likely. They are expanding their frontiers of terrorism and are targeting Lahore and Punjab now because they think that by doing so they would be really shaking up Pakistan. They would try and destabilize it much more than what they have been able to do while sitting in the tribal belt and only trying to target those areas, which perhaps do not catch the attention of the political forces and the powers, which are there in Islamabad and the rest of the world.

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