New Delhi: The Pakistan military's powerful spy agency must be tightly controlled and not allowed to act independently, US Senator John Kerry said on Monday after meeting Indian leaders to discuss the deadly Mumbai attacks.
India has blamed last month's attacks that killed 179 people on the banned Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which analysts say has long had ties with the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.
New Delhi has also demanded Islamabad do more to stop such militant groups from using Pakistani soil to launch attacks on Indian cities.
The Mumbai attacks have renewed suspicion in India and elsewhere about ties between Lashkar and the ISI, escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.
"In the United States, our intelligence agency is obviously held accountable, not just to the administration that runs it but also to the United States Congress and, through the Congress, to the people," Kerry told reporters in New Delhi after meeting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"It is imperative that the intelligence service of Pakistan not be able to make its own choices or operate outside of the standards that we have a right to expect," said Kerry, a Democrat and the designated head of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is close to President-elect Barack Obama.
Kerry said he would make that clear to Pakistani leaders when he travelled to Islamabad later on Monday.
Islamabad has strenuously denied any state links and blamed the Mumbai attacks on "non-state actors".
It has vowed to cooperate in investigations but has repeatedly said anyone caught in Pakistan would be tried in Pakistan.
Pakistan has also cracked down on jihadi organisations, shutting offices and arresting scores of leaders as pressure mounts for firm action.
The government of former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf banned Lashkar and affiliated groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) shortly after they were blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
The following year, uneasy neighbours India and Pakistan came to the brink of a fourth war since independence over the Parliament raid.
Analysts say the bans imposed after the attack were a sham and the ISI allowed such groups to flourish so that they could be used to destabilise New Delhi.
A flurry of Western leaders have recently urged India to show restraint and Pakistan to do more to root out such groups.
On Sunday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown blamed Lashkar-e-Toiba for the Mumbai attacks and said three-quarters of the serious plots investigated by British authorities "have links to al Qaeda in Pakistan".
Kerry joined that procession, saying Pakistan must take strong measures to deal with Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad "and all of those entities that are at war with civilised behaviour".
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