Blaming “a strategic shift of the US policy towards India” for an “acute deficit of trust” between them, former president Pervez Musharraf has suggested open and frank talks to restore trust urgently.
“The abandonment of Pakistan after 1989, with a strategic shift of the US policy towards India and military sanctions against Pakistan, cost US-Pakistan relations very dearly,” he wrote in a piece for CNN suggesting that in the Pakistani public’s mind, the US “used” Pakistan and then “abandoned it”. The alleged “US nuclear policy of appeasement and strategic co-operation with India against Pakistan is taken by the man in the street in Pakistan as very partisan and an act of animosity against our national interest,” Musharraf wrote.
Also blaming what he called the “malicious role of India and the Afghan government itself in maligning Pakistan’s military and intelligence” Musharraf said, “We know what Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad especially, are doing.””We also know that the Afghan intelligence, military and foreign service personnel go for training in India,” he alleged asserting that “not a single one comes to Pakistan, despite Pakistan’s longstanding offer of free training since my time in office”.
Calling for a stop to what he dubbed as “the ulterior Indian motive of creating an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan”, Musharraf said, “Only the US can ensure such an essential change.” On Kashmir, he said the “dispute needs an urgent, amicable settlement. That is the core towards stopping the religious militancy of the Kashmir-orientated mujahedeen.” On its part, Musharraf admitted that Pakistan needed to explain clearly why it was not acting against the Haqqani group or when will it operate in North Waziristan.
Talking about Pakistan’s failure to find Osama bin Laden, he suggested that Pakistani intelligence agencies should be purged of any elements who might not be committed to the official line of fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban.
