Foreign Minister of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar said on Saturday that US charges about Pakistani involvement in last week’s attack on the American Embassy in Kabul flow from Washington’s desire to use Pakistan as a scapegoat for the success or lack of it in the fighting in Afghanistan.
In an interview aired on CBS television network, she denied “absolutely and unequivocally” the allegations by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, that the ISI was helping militants attack U.S. targets inside Afghanistan.
She said that the reaction among the people of Pakistan over statements by Mullen and other US officials was “exceptionally hostile.”
“We are part of the solution,” Khar said. “We are not part of the problem. And if you continue to drive us in the other direction, unfortunately, you will not only alienate the government of Pakistan, which is reaching out to you, which has been a worthy ally. I’m more concerned you will [alienate] the 180 million Pakistanis that your government always talks about reaching out to.”
Asked about the possibility of American troops crossing into Pakistan to fight the militants, the foreign minister said that there are red lines and rules of engagement with America, which should not be broken.
“It opens all kinds of doors and all kinds of options,” she said. Khar, however, insisted that Pakistan’s policy was to seek a more intensive engagement with the US and that she would like to discourage any blame game.
ON MSNBC, she questioned why Mullen and other US officials in the midst of this war on terror “want to create scapegoats, because success as we perceived it may not be coming.” If such public recriminations continued, she said, “Then we would all lose out.”
US using Pakistan as a ‘scapegoat’
