New Delhi, Oct 31 (IANS) Amid concerns in India over continuing American aid to Pakistan, former US president George W. Bush Saturday said it was in New Delhi’s interest that Washington has “a friendship” with Islamabad.
“It is in India’s interest that the US has a friendship with Pakistan,” Bush said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here.

He was responding to a question over the billions of dollars given to Pakistan by the US as aid which is suspected to have been used against building a war machinery against Indian interests.

Bush recalled that after 9/11 attacks, then US secretary of state Colin Powell had spoken to Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf and asked him to choose between the Taliban and the US.

Bush said Pakistan chose the US and said extremists were a threat to their own democracy.

Asserting that force alone can deal with such terrorists, Bush said: “I don’t think you can negotiate with extremists.”

“It’s in our interest to stay engaged with Pakistan,” he stressed.

Bush said both the US and India were engaged in an ideological battle against extremists who kill innocents.

Expressing his “deepest condolences” to the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and their families, Bush said like 9/11 in America, the attack served as a “moment of clarity” in India.

“Both our nations are engaged in an ideological struggle,” he said. The two countries seek to “advance our values of liberty, tolerance and hope”.