Source: The Sangai Express
Shillong, July 30:
The United States does not see insurgent outfits operating in North-Eastern States as "direct threats" but is "monitoring" the happenings of the region to the "extent possible".
"I don�t think the US sees at this stage the North-Eastern insurgent outfits as direct threats," American Consul General for Eastern and NE India, George Sibley told reporters here today.
But the US Embassy and the Consulate in India were "keeping track" and "monitoring" to the extent possible what was happening in the North-East, he said at the end of his four-day visit to Meghalaya.
Sibley said the US was in the process of "deepening and strengthening" its relationship with India.
"Insur- gency is certainly detrimental" in that respect.
Maintaining that the US Government did not label any of the underground outfits of the region as �terrorists� because of their �complicated� nature, he said "we term as act of terrorism any killing of innocent people anywhere in the world�.
Asked how did the US perceive ISI activities of Pakistan in India and particularly in the North-east, the envoy evaded a direct reply saying the functioning of any intelligence wing of a country were not revealed and therefore he did not have any knowledge.
Although the US considered Al-Qaeda as a more potential threat than ULFA as the former was �attacking� its countrymen, he said the American Government also cared for terrorism in the other parts of the world.
That is why the USA joined hands with all the like-minded democratic and pluralist countries to fight terrorism.