Radio Pakistan- Pakistan says it has changed the policy of seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan as well as attitude towards India.
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US pointed out that Pakistan’s old policy of seeking
strategic depth in Afghanistan had changed and so had its attitude
towards India.
“We are not hedging bets on the Taliban,” she said. But this change
was not recognised in Washington nor was Pakistan’s sacrifices in the
war against terror, said the ambassador.
Quoting IMF estimates, she said Pakistan had lost almost $78 billion
during the conflict that started after the Sept 11, 2011, terrorist
attacks in the US. “More than 42,000 Pakistani civilians and soldiers
have been killed,” she said. “We are fighting every day and we are
taking the hit.”
Pakistan, she said, had taken the responsibility for what happens
inside its borders, “we are still paying the price and there should be
some strategic sympathy.”
The ambassador noted that the US and Pakistan had experienced “an
extraordinarily difficult period” after an American air strike killed 24
Pakistani soldiers last November, but they were still staunch allies.
Mr Lute agreed, saying that the countries shared the vital interests of
defeating Al Qaeda and stabilising Afghanistan.
The CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft asked the ambassador if
Dr Shakil Afridi’s punishment demonstrated that the Pakistanis “have
more loyalty to Osama bin Laden than they do to the United States.”
“In a word, I’d call it outrageous,” said Lt-Gen Karl Eikenberry
(retd), who served as US ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011.
Ms Rehman rejected the US position, saying that Dr Afridi was convicted by a court in accordance with the country’s law.
“Dr Afridi was contracting with a foreign intelligence agency without
any permission. He was contracting with militant groups who were
beheading our soldiers,” she said. “He had no clue that he was engaged
in a fight against or search for Osama bin Laden.”
His conviction demonstrated that “we are working according to a constitutional norm,” she said.
Ms Rehman referred to President Obama’s statement on the day Bin
Laden was killed, noting that he too had acknowledged that this could
not have been done without help and support the US had received from
Pakistan.
She wrapped up her arguments by urging the Americans to recognise the
changes happening in Pakistan. “This is a new Pakistan. Catch up,
gentlemen,” she said.
At a meeting in Aspen, Colorado, Obama officials again accused
Pakistan of not doing enough to combat terrorism while the Pakistani
envoy insisted that her country was doing all it could but was not
getting credit for its sacrifices.
Although the United States and Pakistan agreed recently to renew
efforts to rebuild their troubled relationship, the discussion — posted
live on the internet — made it amply clear that they still disagreed on
all major issues. The discussion precedes a key meeting between US and
Pakistani spy chiefs in Washington on Aug 2 in which Pakistan is
expected to renew its demands for ending drone strikes and may seek US
help to stop cross-border attacks from Afghanistan.
But senior US officials disagreed with Pakistan on both the issues.
“These are critical masses of people that come in; this is not just
potshots,” said Ms Rehman while explaining Islamabad’s position on
cross-border attacks by Pakistani Taliban groups.
“They come in large numbers, with sophisticated weapons.”
Speaking through a video link from Washington, she said that on 52
different occasions during the last eight months Pakistan had provided
to American and Nato commanders in Afghanistan the locations from which
the militants were attacking, to no avail.
President Obama’s top adviser on the Afghan conflict Douglas E. Lute,
however, rejected her claim. Mr Lute, a retired three-star general,
insisted that cross-border infiltrations into Pakistan were less serious
than the attacks carried out by the Afghan Taliban from their bases
inside Pakistan.
“There’s no comparison of the Pakistani Taliban’s relatively recent,
small-in-scale presence inside Afghanistan…to the decades-long
experience and relations between elements of the Pakistani government
and the Afghan Taliban. So to compare these is simply, I think, unfair,”
Mr Lute said.
Criticising the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan, Ms Rehman said it’s
time for that sort of ‘robotic warfare’ to end. “The drone strikes now
see diminishing returns,” she said, while acknowledging that up to this
point they had helped kill dangerous militants. “We will be seeking an
end to drone strikes and there will be no compromise on that.”
The drone strikes, she said, whipped up anti-American sentiment and
“add to the pool of recruits we’re fighting against,” she said.Media agencies
An earthquake of
moderate intensity shook Meghalaya, Assam and some other north-east
states on Sunday but there was no report of any casualty or damage to
property.
