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NEW DELHI- Pakistan's foreign minister appealed to India Friday not to get sucked into a blame game over the Mumbai attacks and drag relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours back into the deep freeze.
Speaking in New Delhi, where he was on a four-day official visit, Shah Mehmood Qureshi condemned the multiple Islamist assaults on India's financial capital, calling the militants "barbaric animals."
But Qureshi said India had spoken too swiftly earlier on Friday in blaming "elements in Pakistan" for the attacks.
"My honest view is that the government should have reflected more in coming to its conclusions - it should have tested our spirit," he told a gathering of female journalists.
"Let us build a new relationship or we could get sucked back into a situation that we have been living in for 60 years and that will be a tragedy as large as this one," he said, referring to the attacks on Mumbai that left at least 130 people dead.
"We should avoid a replay of that beaten track of the blame game," he said.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two over the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir.
India has frequently accused Pakistan of sheltering guerrilla groups which have launched attacks against Indian targets - allegations that Islamabad strongly denies.
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