Singh at the news conference. (AP)

Washington, Nov. 25: For Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the ecstasy of being the cynosure of the world’s most powerful capital’s glitterati and literati last night has been shortlived.

A sombre and unusually grave Singh addressed the media on the morning after the state dinner for him here to announce that he would not be having any talks with the Pakistanis in Port of Spain on the sidelines of the Commonwealth summit this week.

“A bilateral meeting with Pakistani leaders during the Commonwealth heads of government meeting is not planned,” the Prime Minister said.

Although his news conference was to sum up the results of his state visit to the US, the Prime Minister said at the outset that “before I begin my remarks I wish to say a few words on the eve of the first anniversary of the terrorist attack in Mumbai last year on November 26”.

Singh said “this is a day of remembrance and of paying homage to all the innocent civilians and our brave men in uniform who lost their lives in one of the worst terrorist attacks our country has ever seen. We will never forget the suffering they have gone through”.

Firmly squelching any speculation of a revival of the Sharm-el-Sheikh process on the margins of the Commonwealth summit — which is also being attended by the Pakistanis — Singh said, instead, that “the government will not rest till we have brought the perpetrators of this crime to justice”.

Alleging that the masterminds of the Mumbai attack are still “roaming around” in Pakistan, the Prime Minister demanded that they be tried and punished. He would not comment on reports that an anti-terror court in Pakistan today chargesheeted seven accused, including Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, in the Mumbai terror plot on the ground that the government had not yet independently verified these reports.

In this context, Singh said he had been assured by President Barack Obama and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton that America’s influence on Pakistan on putting an end to cross-border terrorism would produce results.

The Prime Minister referred to a Counter-terrorism Cooperation Initiative to expand collaboration on counter-terrorism, information sharing and capacity building with the US which was finalised during his stay in Washington.

Singh said he was leaving the US with the satisfaction that India’s priorities for future collaboration with the Obama administration in agriculture, education, health, clean energy and energy security, defence, science and technology had been firmed up.

In a singificant revelation, Singh said Obama had told him during their talks that following the global economic crisis, the US could no longer play the role it used to in stimulating global growth and that other centres of power in the world had to be invoked in this effort.

It was clear that Obama had made this statement while the two leaders discussed China and the controversial recent US invitation to China to be involved in South Asia, which has upset New Delhi.