ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has demanded the US to take stern action against American officials involved in the leakage of diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, with a warning that the disclosures could heighten the prevailing anti-US sentiments across the country.
“We have conveyed our concerns to the Obama administration on the WikiLeaks disclosures and also made a demand that stern action be taken against the officials in Washington found involved in the leakage of sensitive cables,” a senior official said.
Another Pakistani diplomat said that the US administration first called Pakistan’s Ambassador to Washington Hussain Haqqani to the State Department where he was told about the disclosure of diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks.
“That happened a week ago and after that US Ambassador Cameron Munter met the president, the prime minister and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and took them into confidence,” he said. “Those meetings were followed by phone calls by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her Pakistani counterpart and top Pakistani leadership advising Islamabad not to read too much into the WikiLeaks issue,” the diplomat said.
He said that the things that the Foreign Office confirmed in its reaction on Monday such as the US demand for used nuclear material “were already known to us as was the case with the matters between the two governments but now that these issues are in public there can be certain implications and the study to have an idea of those implications is on”.
He said another worry for Pakistan at the diplomatic level was disclosures about the Saudi king’s reported views of a disliking for President Asif Zardari. “We look forward to the Saudi friends to come up with some sort of a clarification and especially after the presidential spokesman’s statement that the Pakistani president holds the Saudi King in very high esteem,” the diplomat said.
“Whatever, the WikiLeaks has done to damage the ties between Islamabad and Riyadh is condemnable but at the same time, we would like the Saudi authorities to take strong exception to the disclosures,” he said.
