New Delhi: In a tacit admission that the controversial Indo-Pak joint statement could be a case of "bad drafting", Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon on Tuesday said its meaning was clear and that India will not budge on the issue of terrorism.
"With Pakistan it is not a T-20 match," the Foreign Secretary said in a lecture here attended by Parliamentarians.
"One can argue how good or bad the drafting was...you can say it is bad drafting, but the meaning is clear," he said responding to criticism of the joint statement issued from Egypt after a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Menon said India's attempt with Pakistan has been three-fold, one of which is to "bring it back to the fundamental issue of terrorism".
"Our intent is clear. We are not going to budge (on the issue of terrorism)," he added and referred to the Prime Minister's statement in Parliament on the document.
Singh has made it clear that the dialogue cannot go forward unless Pakistan takes credible action to dismantle terror infrastructure and stop Pakistani soil from being used for terror acts against India.
"We said no, and made it quite clear that the issue is terrorism and we are not going to start any composite dialogue without that," Menon said responding to Pakistan's stand of linking the resumption of the composite dialogue with the action against terrorism.
"India also conveyed to Pakistan that just because there is no composite dialogue, they cannot stop action against terror," he said.
On the inclusion of Balochistan in the communique, Menon said, "Pakistan has been saying this for long. We said we have nothing to hide."
On Arunachal, he said India has been maintaining that China has no claim over it.