Ex-US envoy praises Nawaz, Pakistan’s civilian leaders

• Khalilzad calls ex-PM Nawaz’s Jan 3 statement important

WASHINGTON: Former US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad praising Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has said that the former prime minister had in his January 3 presser called for abandoning self-deception by the military and an end to policies that are leading to Pakistan’s international isolation.

In his latest piece in The National Interest, an American bimonthly international affairs magazine, he wrote that civilian leaders in Pakistan were not united in their support of terrorists and question the wisdom of the establishment’s policy.

He said that it would be important for the US to reach out to the people of Pakistan and document what he believed ‘support for terrorists and extremists that has brought about the change in the American approach’ to their country.

“We should make it clear that we look forward to cooperation and partnership with Pakistan once its government abandons its current policies,” according to Khalilzad, also a former policy planning director in the US Department of Defence and the author of The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House: My Journey through a Turbulent World.

“Nawaz Sharif’s statement is important because his family dominates the country’s largest and most important province, Punjab, and his brother is the likely next prime minister of Pakistan,” he wrote while praising the January 3 statement of Nawaz Sharif.

He pointed out opposition to the military’s policies among different sections of the society, and said that leaders of the previous civilian government, led by the Pakistan People’s Party, similarly opposed the military’s policy. He asked the US administration to consider how to help mobilise civilian opponents of support for terror against the military supporters.

In the event that Pakistan changes its policy, “we should be ready to return to a positive relationship and encourage improved regional relations, including with Afghanistan, that respect legitimate Pakistani concerns,” he said, adding that success against terrorism and extremism in Afghanistan and the region requires a change in Pakistan’s policy.