HIGHLIGHTS-Rice says urgent resolute action needed on Mumbai

NEW DELHI Dec 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged rapid and resolute action over the Mumbai attacks on a trip to New Delhi on Wednesday to ease tension between India and Pakistan.

Following are comments that Rice made in New Delhi: **************************************************************

"I know, too, that this a time when cooperation of all parties who have any information is really required.

"This is a different situation. It's a situation in which the attacks were clearly targetted to send a message about India, about its integration to the world, foreigners were targetted, indeed America lost citizens as well.

"So we have to act with urgency. We have to act with resolve. This is the time for everybody to cooperate and do so transparently, and this is especially a time for Pakistan to do so."

PAKISTAN AND COOPERATION:

"The Pakistani government has said unequivocally it intends to cooperate and President Zardari has told me he will follow the leads wherever they go, and I think that is a very important commitment on the part of Pakistan.

"I think we should, I should, refrain from speculation about what the Pakistani government might do in response to specific requests, because what has to happen here is there has to be a real sense of transparancy, a real sense of action, a real sense of urgency."

INVOLVEMENT

"Whether there is a direct al Qaeda hand or not, this is clearly a kind of terrorism in which al Qaeda participates.

"The sense that you want to not just terrorise in a general sense, but you try and send a strong message that people are not safe, that businesses are not safe, that economic centres are not safe. We experienced that in New York.

"We are not going to jump to any conclusions about who is responsible for this, although the United States is prepared and is already actively engaged in information sharing, in forensic help, to try and make those links.

"Any work that I hope to do with the Indian officials is to talk about what we can contribute in terms of knowing how to use information, how to use leads for prevention.

That now has to be number one. Yes, these people have to be brought to justice for the terrible things they did. But number one needs to be to try to prevent another attack, because I can tell you, some 7-½ years after 9/11 we know there are people plotting and planning every day to try to bring another successful attack.

INVESTIGATION

"We all have a great interest in getting to the bottom of this and we have a great interest in bring people to justice and we have a great interest in prevention, so that would be my message" (to Pakistan).

"I don't want to get into the specifics of what Pakistan may or may not do, but I am going to take as a firm commitment Pakistan's stated commitment to get to the bottom of this and to know these are enemies of Pakistan as well as they are enemies of India." (Reporting by C.J. Kuncheria; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Bill Tarrant)