India's defence minister said on Tuesday there were dozens of militant training camps active near Pakistan's border with India that had not been dismantled by authorities there. "As long as the terrorist camps are functioning in the border areas in Pakistan soil, certainly there is a threat to India, and it is a fact," A. K. Antony said in the southern state of Kerala, PTI news agency reported.
On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that militants in Pakistan were plotting new attacks on India and urged security forces to stay on high alert. Singh underlined that cross-border terrorism remained a "most pervasive" threat.
In response, Pakistan assured India of its "fullest co-operation" in preventing fresh acts of terror and asked India to share specific information about threats. Relations between India and Pakistan deteriorated after attacks in the Indian financial capital Mumbai in November, in which gunmen killed 166 people.
India blamed the attacks on Pakistan-based militants and broke off a five-year-long peace process aimed at resolving outstanding issues between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Pakistan has accepted that the assault on Mumbai was partly planned on its soil and arrested five people who India said were behind the attack.
Antony said that despite India's continuous urging, however, no Islamic militant camps had been completely dismantled along the India-Pakistan border. The two countries have fought three wars since independence in 1947 and came dangerously close to a fourth following an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 by militants New Delhi said came from Pakistan.
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