In his spirited 45-minute intervention in the debate on the India-Pakistan joint statement Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that bilateral engagement or dialogue process cannot move forward if terrorist attacks continue from across the border.

Ruling out a dilution of India's stand on terrorism emanating from Pakistan, he also stressed that there was no alternative except to continue engagement with Islamabad.

The explanations by the government have not cut ice with the chief opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, whose members walked out of the Lok Sabha Thursday at the end of the two-debate, saying their objections about delinking action on terror from the composite process and a reference to Balochistan in the joint statement have not been addressed by the government.