Pakistan’s role in reconciliation ambiguous: US

[sonicboom]

Pakistan’s role in reconciliation ambiguous: US


WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s role in the Afghan reconciliation process is “ambiguous and opaque”, says a senior US envoy as Washington prepares for one of the largest international conferences in Kabul next week to find a viable solution to the nine-year war.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US special Representative Richard Holbrooke also made it abundantly clear that the United States was not seeking reconciliation with the Haqqani network.

“Pakistan’s role in reconciliation is ambiguous and opaque at this point. It is something that we want to learn more about,” he said.

“Remember, we’re talking about reconciliation in Afghanistan not Pakistan’s own relationships.”

Mr Holbrooke was responding to a question from Senator Jeanne Shaheen who had asked the US envoy to define Pakistan’s role in the reconciliation process.

Mr Holbrooke explained that Pakistan itself was facing five major insurgencies — the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Haqqani network and Al Qaeda.

The US envoy identified TTP as the group which trained the Times Square bomber, LeT as responsible for the Mumbai bombing and the Haqqani network as an “odious” group, “in North Waziristan who’ve been attacking the American troops”.

His description indicated that the US did not approve of Pakistan’s efforts to arrange reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Haqqani network.

“I do not want to leave any on this committee with the impression that some of the news reports about recently fevered accounts of secret deals between elements in Pakistan and elements in the Taliban are accurate,” he told the committee.

“We have no evidence whatsoever of the accuracy of those reports. But there is movement,” he added.

Senator John Kerry, the committee’s chairman, however, indicated what the US expected Pakistan to do to facilitate US efforts for ending the Afghan war.

He noted that Pakistan was “central to the resolution” of the Afghan dispute, emphasising that “there isn’t a military solution but you need a political one”.

Yet, he explained that the US expected a military move from Pakistan to secure its western border with Afghanistan to enable a political solution.

“It seems to me that the greatest pressure comes maybe possibly with Kandahar, but certainly not in the absence of pressure on the western part of Pakistan, which we’re struggling with the Pakistanis to get to be a sufficient level,” the senator said.

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