Pakistan formally seeks Aafia’s repatriation

Pakistan has formally appealed to the United States to repatriate jailed neuro-scientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui to her homeland on humanitarian grounds, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.
Malik, who is on a two-day visit to Washington for talks on Pakistan-US cooperation, made a written petition to the US Attorney General, urging Dr Siddiqui’s return to Pakistan.
In the request, he drew attention of the U.S. authorities to the predicament of Ms Siddiqui’s family back home. He said Ms Siddiqui’s 75-year old ailing mother and her “emotionally distressed” children have suffered much from years of separation from her.
He said the children want to meet their mother and that they want her back in the country. “I raised the issue as the Pakistani people feel about it —— I pointed out the Director FBI about how she was illegally picked up and taken to Kabul and then out of Kabul to the United States.”
“Let us hope the request is considered sympathetically,” he told Washington-based Pakistani journalists.
On Friday, Malik’s schedule of events included meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Director FBI Robert Mueller and US Special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Marc Grossman. He suggested during the media interaction that one way to deal with the situation resulting from Ms Aafia Siddiqui’s imprisonment in the United States, could be that she is allowed to complete rest of her sentencing in Pakistan.
But he dismissed the suggestion that there could be a trade-off for Ms Siddiqui’s return to Pakistan with release of Dr Shakil Afridi, an imprisoned Pakistani, who worked for CIA in hunt for Osama bin Laden before the al-Qaeda chief was killed last year in an American raid on his hideout in Abbottabad. Malik was firm that these two cases are totally different. Afridi’s first duty was to his country and if he had access to any information he should have shared with the Pakistani government, he said in response to a question. However, the interior minister added the Pakistani authorities are thoroughly probing to learn about details of Dr Afridi’s activities and motives.
The interior minister said he also raised the issue of “aggression” coming from across the Afghan border, especially from the Afghanistan’s Kunar area, into Pakistani border areas and Balochistan, the southwestern province, which has experienced an upsurge in targeted violence. He proposed that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States work together in a trilateral way to sort out cross-border issues. There should be an end to the blame-game, he said.
Malik said he particularly pointed out the anti-Pakistan activities of militant leaders Mullah Fazalullah and Maulvi Faqir from the Afghan soil and the support and arms emanating from Afghanistan for some elements in Balochistan. “We are victims, we are suffering at the hands of terrorists operating from Afghan territory —- we are fighting not only for Pakistan we are fighting for the regional and world peace——- and both Pakistan and Afghanistan are victims of terror.”
In this respect, Malik told journalists that the evidence for arms flow from Afghanistan into Pakistan came to light when a weapons-laden truck was discovered while passing through Chaman border crossing.
On the issue of Haqqani network, the interior minister said he reminded that the militants are Afghans and not Pakistanis and that they operate inside Afghanistan. He said there is no evidence that Haqqanis have a base of operations inside Pakistan. The Afghan militants keep moving from one point to another in Afghanistan and possibly along the border, he noted.
The interior minister and Ambassador William Brownfield, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, earlier co-hosted the latest round of the U.S. – Pakistan Law Enforcement and Counterterrorism Working Group.
The U.S. delegation noted the steps taken by the Government of Pakistan to combat improvised explosive devices. “Both sides recommitted to pursuing practical solutions for improving joint efforts to combat IEDs and work with the Government of Afghanistan to improve security along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a statement said. According to the State Department the U.S. and Pakistani delegations each agreed to take specific steps to: strengthen coordination and communication; improve enforcement of existing laws on the transport and storage of IED precursors; increase public awareness of the threat posed by IED networks and facilitators; disrupt financial flows that support these networks; and improve interdiction efforts.