‘Relations beyond Afghanistan and Iraq’: US wants long-term ties with Pakistan
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said here on Thursday that the United States wanted a “long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan beyond Afghanistan and Iraq”, according to Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri who earlier met her at the White House.
He said his meetings with key members of Congress and senior administration officials, including Ms Rice and Colin Powell, had convinced him that the US wanted to have a long-term relationship with Pakistan and not a “cut-and-run” one as in the past. He said he was also convinced that Pakistan enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington and regardless of the outcome of the next election, Pakistan-US relations would remain close and mutually beneficial. The foreign minister said that Pakistan was important in its own right. He rejected the fear in some circles that Pakistan and US were on a “collision course” but he insisted that Pakistan would protect its national interest at all costs. He said a sound relationship should be healthy and balanced and it should work to the benefit of the parties involved.
Mr Kasuri in a special briefing for Pakistani journalists said that US officials had expressed no apprehensions in regard to Pakistan’s nuclear programme. He said Pakistan is a nuclear power and that is something which is not open to debate or discussion. “We have asserted out nuclear status boldly and without apologies and that is clear to everyone,” he added.
Asked if the subject of anti-Americanism in Pakistan had come up, the minister said the US knew why some of its policies were unpopular in certain parts of the world. He said what lay at the heart of US unpopularity in the Muslim world were the unresolved issues of Palestine and Kashmir. These were emotional questions and they coloured and influenced popular opinion. They should be viewed realistically and their true nature appreciated in the context of the present fight against terrorism.
About the Wana operation, Mr Kasuri said that Pakistan was not going to kill its own people at anyone’s asking. “We are not Macedonians,” he added, referring to the brutal killing of six Pakistanis by security forces on mere suspicion which proved to be unfounded. He said the law in Pakistan was supreme and it would take its course. “We would try to convince our people because those who live in the tribal areas are our people. However, we would not permit anyone, foreigner or local, to use Pakistani territory to launch attacks on other countries,” he added. He said if there were foreigners in the tribal areas who had lived there since the Afghan war and married locally and raised families, they would have to come forward and register themselves with the local authorities. If they did not do so, then necessary steps would have to be taken to make them comply with the law.
Asked why Pakistani authorities were negotiating with the tribals, he replied that if Americans could negotiate in Falluja though they were in Iraq as foreigners, surely no one should object to Pakistan negotiating with its own people, its own citizens. He said that it was not US policy to operate in Pakistani territory, adding that “nor will we allow that.”
Later, addressing a community meeting at the embassy, the foreign minister said Pakistan needed peace because there could be no economic progress when there was tension.
On Pakistan-India peace process, the minister said it would continue and the Kashmir issue would have to be settled in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. He said Pakistan’s democracy might not be perfect but “we are still a model in the Muslim world”. He called Pakistan a moderate country with a strong civil society and all the concomitant institutions. He also told the meeting of the economic stability that had come to the country in the last three years. He said Ms Rice herself had told him that her friends in the International Monetary Fund had informed her of Pakistan’s economic success.
To a question if India was closer to Afghanistan than Pakistan, the foreign minister replied that Afghanistan was a sovereign country and had the right to establish relations with any country of the world. He disclosed that President Karzai himself had told him in Kabul, “We will have no relations with any country of the world at the expense of Pakistan.” Mr Kasuri said Pakistan and Afghanistan had close links and a good relationship. “We should not worry about others but concentrate on our own relationship,” he added. He said Pakistan today was a confident and self-reliant country. He declared that Pakistan would not allow its national interest to be compromised. However, it was sensitive to the legitimate concerns of the international community and would do what was necessary to address them. He said Pakistan would never cringe or cower, but at the same time it would not unnecessarily take defiant positions because “we have seen what has happened to the ‘Tees Maar Khans’ of the world”, he added. |
