Pakistan has expressed concern about the negative implications of US president Barack Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan and has stressed the need for better coordination between the American and the Pakistani armed forces to nip the “evil” of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the bud.
As Obama communicated to his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari his administration’s decision to increase troops for Afghanistan, Pakistani foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit said the country’s problem was not an increase in troops, but their positions of deployment in Afghanistan.
Basit said Pakistan fears that in the wake of Obama’s new policy on Afghanistan, the US would add too many troops on the Afghan side of the border. “Over 30,000 troops added to the US contingent in Afghanistan could send Taliban fighters across the border into Pakistan, thereby complicating the ongoing military operation in South Waziristan. On the Pakistani government’s official view on the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy, Basit said Pakistan would express its official position when the US policy will be announced formally.
But, he added, the Pakistani prime minister did receive a phone call from US national security adviser General James Jones on Tuesday, and both leaders exchanged views on the policy. Basit said the main purpose of the call was to take Pakistan into confidence about the policy. Basit said Obama had also written a letter to Zardari, which was replied to after consultations with “all stakeholders”.
As per the letter, Basit said, Obama has offered Pakistan an enhanced strategic partnership, including additional cooperation in military and economic fields. Basit said that through the letter, Obama attempted to dispel Pakistani fears about India filling the vacuum which will be created once the US pulls back from Afghanistan.
But diplomatic circles in Islamabad pointed out that Obama’s letter also said that the US wants Zardari to rally political and national security institutions in a united campaign against the extremists.
