US Deputy Secretary of State John , Negroponte held talks with Pakistan's president yesterday as the government came under renewed pressure to crack down on militants blamed for the Mumbai attacks.
Negroponte arrived hours after the UN Security Council declared one of Pakistan's biggest charities a terrorist group, and ordered sanctions against four people, including the organisation's leader.
Islamabad has come under intense international pressure to act against militant groups operating on its soil in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, which killed 172 people, and which India blames on elements in Pakistan.
At the weekend it raided a camp run by the charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is widely viewed as the political wing of the outlawed Islamist group India says planned the attacks on its financial centre.
Fifteen people were arrested in the
raid and Pakistan says it has detained two leaders of the banned group, Lashkar-e-Thlba(LeT).
The United States has given a cautious welcome to the arrests, but indicated Wednesday it will maintain the pressure on Pakistan.
"What we are looking to see is if there's going to be a shift in Pakistan in how they deal with LeT," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
"If it proves out, over time, that there is that shift, then that would be a good one, and something that we would welcome. But it's just too early for us to say," she told reporters.
Negroponte also met Pakistan's army chief and senior government ministers for talks focusing on relations with India, which have suffered in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, a foreign ministry official said.
Ihe United States has engaged in intensive diplomacy to try to defuse tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited both countries last week as relations sunk to their lowest levels since an attack on the parliament in New Delhi that was blamed on Pakistani militants in 2001.
She called on India to show restraint, and also urged Pakistan to cooperate with New Delhi in its investigations into the attacks.
India has accused Islamabad of failing to enforce its ban on LeT, which was established to fight Indian rule in Kashmir and has past links to Pakistani intelligence services and al-Qaeda.
The UN Security Council decision to list Jamaat-ud-Dawa as an LeT front came after India this week requested the move and the head of the charity, Hafiz Saeed, on Thursday condemned the move as pandering to Pakistan's historic rival.
"The Security Council took this decision without giving any us any opportunity to respond," said Hafiz Saeed, who also founded LeT but publicly disowned the group when it was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002.