India has right to self-defense: Obama

WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama said every nation had the right to self-defense but declined to say whether India could pursue Pakistan-based extremists accused of orchestrating the Mumbai attacks.

"If a country is attacked, it has a right to defend itself," he said in an interview aired Sunday on a foreign TV channel in reply to a question whether India could go in hot pursuit of militants over the Pakistan border.

Obama, who has reserved the right to strike Pakistan-based militants if the government in Islamabad is unwilling or unable, called for a "strategic partnership" with all of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan against terror.

"So far (Pakistani) President (Asif Ali) Zardari has sent the right signals. He has indicated that he understands this is not just a threat to the United States but a threat to Pakistan," he said.

Suspicion over the recent Mumbai carnage, which left 172 dead, has fallen on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group that has fought Indian rule in Kashmir and was blamed for a 2001 attack on the New Delhi parliament.

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