Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 14

India today kept up the pressure on Pakistan insisting it needs to shut down the “terrorism factory” and that there is now international concern over this.Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar made these observations while participating in a panel discussion co hosted by the ministry of external affairs in Mumbai.“Western countries may not be open about Pakistan and terrorism problem but they have concerns. The issue really here is whether Pakistan is willing to take fundamental steps. They need to shut down terrorism factory,” he said. “Terrorism in the past was seen as our problem but now it’s a bigger problem. There is today international concern (on terrorism),” he said.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) While India has made it abundantly clear for quite some time now that it intends to look at other regional groupings as alternatives to SAARC, the Foreign Secretary today bluntly pointed out that while India had not given up on SAARC, it nevertheless would look at other options as “SAARC is stuck”.“We haven’t given up on SAARC. We can’t and we shouldn’t,” the Foreign Secretary said. “When it comes to regional integration, we will keep looking for other opportunities since SAARC is stuck,” Jaishankar said.