Lahore attack desperate act to strain Pak-Lanka ties
ISLAMABAD: Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Sri Lankan foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama jointly addressed a press conference in Islamabad on Wednesday and condemned the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.
'We have some details that will help unearth those responsible for this act. I cannot share the details right now as it will undermine the quality of our investigations,' Qureshi said.
'We will share the investigations first with the Sri Lankans before with anyone else.'
'We might even send a special team to share the details and leads.'
'I will also extend Pakistan's appreciation of the Sri Lankan egsture of sending their team to Pakistan and for understanding what terrorism means. It is a very generous gesture on their part,' the foriegn minister said.
'We both condemn this incident in the strongest possible terms. Terrorism should be condemned in all its forms and manifestations.'
'In my view, it was a desperate act to bring our bilateral relations under stress. I want to salute the police officers who sacrificed their lives to save the Sri Lankan players,' he said.
'The terrorists were heavily armed. They had rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers, hand grenades, and they were well-trained.'
'Our joint message to the terrorists is that we will defeat them.'
'This is a global issue and we need to adopt a holistic approach to fight this multifaceted problem,' Qureshi said.
Sri Lanka's foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama thanked the Pakistanis who laid down their lives to protect the Sri Lankan team.
'We condemn all terror attacks with utmost outrage...terror has no boundaries and we have fought terrorism in Sri Lanka also, and are on the last tage of eliminating it there.'
'But this was the first time ever that a terror attack targeted Sri Lankans outside Sri Lanka,' he said.
'I discussed the Lahore incident with President Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. We should use this unfortunate incident as an opportunity in our struggle against terrorism,' he said.
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