Will continue to work to eliminate terror safe havens: US

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The US on Friday said it will continue to work with countries in the region to eliminate safe havens of terrorists which also pose a threat to India but refrained from commenting on a bill in the Congress that America should declare Pakistan a 'terrorist state'.

The US also called for a "meaningful" Indo-Pak dialogue to address differences including the Kashmir issue and to bring down recent tensions.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby, however, did not comment on a bill in the Congress that the US should declare Pakistan a 'terrorist state'.

Asked if the government would support the bill and a similar online petition, Kirby at his daily press briefing said: "I have not seen anything specifically about the - such a bill, and obviously we don't - I'm not going to comment on whatever pending legislation may be coming in that regard."

"What we - what I would say is common threat, common challenge in the region, and we're going to continue to work with Pakistan, with Afghanistan, and the Secretary (of State) just came back from Brussels and the Afghanistan conference in Brussels. We're going to continue to work with - and obviously it's a threat to the Indian people as well."

"So we're going to continue to work with the governments in the region to try to address these common threats and challenges, and we've always said that more can be done about the safe havens and that's - we're going to, again, try to work as cooperatively as we can to that end," Kirby said.

He added that the US' position on Kashmir has not changed and it is for India and Pakistan to address the problem.

"On the Kashmir issue, our position has not changed. We want this to be worked out between both sides, the issue of Kashmir. And generally, we obviously want to see the tensions that exist right now be brought down and for dialogue to take its place - meaningful dialogue to try to address these issues bilaterally between the countries," Kirby said.

He said the US wanted India and Pakistan to resolve their differences.

"There are still differences of opinion that exist between them; and as I said earlier, we want them to work through those differences. We have differences with many countries too, and we continue to try to work through them.

"That's all we're asking, that's all we're hoping, that's all we're expecting from leaders in India and Pakistan. But we don't believe for a minute that they don't take the challenges before them seriously or the lives and security of their children," he said.

Kirby also said the US had full confidence in Pakistan's nuclear security.

"I think we've said before we're confident that Pakistan has the security controls they need to have in place on their arsenal," he said.