PM speaks to Obama

New Delhi, May 9 (PTI) A week after the killing of al
Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on Monday night spoke to US President Barack Obama over
phone and discussed the situation in the region.
Sources, however, did not say whether the two leaders
discussed the bin Laden issue.
A PMO spokesman said Singh and Obama discussed further
growth and development of of Indo-US relations and the
situation in the region.
"It was a warm conversation which covered wide-ranging
subjects", he said.
This is the first conversation between the two leaders
since the killing of Osama on May 2 in a raid by US Special
Forces in the garrison city of Abbotabad in Pakistan.
Singh had termed bin Laden's killing as a significant
step forward and asked the international community and
Pakistan in particular to work comprehensively to end the
activities of all terror groups.
The Indian Prime Minister had hoped that bin Laden's
elimination would deal a "decisive blow" to al Qaeda and other
terrorist groups".
The telephonic talk came on a day when the US
President raised questions about the possibility that "some
people inside of government" in Pakistan may have been
involved in providing support structure for the slain
terrorist.
"We don't know whether there might have been some
people inside of government, people outside of government, and
that's something that we have to investigate and more
importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," he
told the 'CBS News' in his first interview after bin Laden's
death.
"We think that there had to be some sort of support
network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know
who or what that support network was," Obama said.
In Islamabad, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
virtually questioned the US role in the 1990s that gave birth
to Taliban and al Qaeda saying Pakistan alone cannot be blamed
for bin Laden even as he dismissed criticism of Islamabad's
complicity in sheltering him.