Stable Pakistan is good for India: Barack Obama

US president Barack Obama on Sunday said a stable Pakistan is good for India more than USA, once again saying his country would not intervene in bilateral issues.

“If Pakistan is stable and prosperous, that is good. Because India is on the move and it is absolutely in your interest that when you are about to succeed in the global economic state, that you do not want the distraction”, he said, referring to insecurity and instability in the region that an unstable extremism-ridden Pakistan can pose.

“Over time trust develops between two countries. Dialogue begins with less controversial issue and then to more controversial issues,” Obama said at a question-answer session with the students of St. Xaviers’ College in Mumbai.

He said Pakistan is an enormous country and “strategically important” for not only USA but also the world at large.

“It is a country whose people who have enormous potential, but also a country which has extremist elements within it. That is not unique to Pakistan, but it exists,” he said.

He said the Pakistan government is aware of that and “we have engaged aggressively with Pakistan government to communicate that”

He said extremism is a cancer in Pakistan.

He said the fight against the extremists in Pakistan is not as quick as it had wanted but the territories in the northwest are difficult.

“Their armed forces are not designed to do”, but they are adapting, he said.

Obama is on a three-day trip to India as part of his ten-day four nation Asia trip to boost the US economy.