Saudi Arabia, with its close ties with Islamabad, could be a "valuable interlocutor" in improving India's ties with Pakistan, India's Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said in Riyad on Sunday.
"We feel Saudi Arabia has a long and close relationship with Pakistan and that makes Saudi a more valuable interlocutor to us," Tharoor told Indian journalists here.
He was responding to a question on whether India will seek Saudi Arabia's support to influence Pakistan to address India's concerns over terrorism emanating from Pakistani territory.
Tharoor added that Saudi Arabia has its own issues with Al Qaeda.
"We expect to have a constructive conversation on the issue. The tentacles of terror have already spread from Afghanistan to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, and latest is Yemen," he added.
Saudi Arabia, the Gulf's most influential country, was the first to recognise the then Taliban regime in Kabul in the mid-nineties and enjoys enormous leverage with Pakistan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is currently on a three-day trip to Riyadh, a path-breaking visit that is likely to see the signing of an extradition treaty paving the way for greater counter-terror cooperation between the two countries.
On a visit to Riyadh with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Sunday clarified his 'interlocutor' comments.
"Saudi Arabia of course has a long and close relationship to Pakistan. But that makes Saudi Arabia all the more valuable and interlocutor for us. When we tell them our experience, Saudi Arabia listens as somebody who is not in any way an enemy of Pakistan but rather as a friend of Pakistan and therefore I am sure we will listen with sympathy and concern to a matter of this nation," Tharoor had said.
However the Minister has now told that he did not suggest that Saudi Arabia mediate. "There's no chance of my saying Saudi Arabia should be a mediator. Never said that or anything like it," Tharoor has said.
New Delhi has always rejected third party mediation between India and Pakistan.
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