US envoy discusses Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia with Indian officials

New Delhi, Mar 19: US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Robert Blake, on Friday discussed Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia with Indian Foreign Affairs officials during his visit to New Delhi.

Blake, discussed issues of common interest to India and the United States.

'I just had about an hour and half by just talking with some of the Joint Secretaries of the Ministry of External Affairs about our common interest both in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia,' Blake said.

'We had a good series of discussions and I'm going off to Afghanistan after this and then to Pakistan. So I wanted to have the chance to touch base with my counterparts here. And we I think, like I always said, have a very strong convergence of interests on many of these issues so they were very good discussions,' he added.

Commenting on the terror emanating from Pakistan soil, Blake said, though the country had made some progress on terror issues, it still had a lot of work to do.

In the United States, there has been greater interest in LeT since the arrest in October of Pakistani-American David Headley, charged with aiding the 26/11 Mumbai attackers.

Pointing to Headley's case, he said it was important for the countries to take note of LeT threat and act collectively against it.

'Pakistan has made important progress on issue of terror but there is still work to be done. As you know they have taken some important steps first in swat and then in south Waziristan and now most recently, with the arrest some of the afghan Taliban but we still think there needs to be progress on LeT in particular,' Blake said.

'The Headley case in our view illustrates the increasing global scope and ambition of let and therefore the need for all of our countries to take the LeT threat seriously and to cooperate with each other to see that it does not pose a threat to the citizens of our country,' he added.