Updated at: 1753 PST, Friday, April 24, 2009
WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States has urged the Obama Administration to enhance his country’s counterterrorism capacity and asked critics of Islamabad’s anti-terror policy not to blow militant threat out of proportions.
“There is a difference, you need to be alarmed and concerned but you need not feel as if Pakistan or Islamabad is about to fall tomorrow. I think there has to be a sense of realism,” Ambassador Husain Haqqani told USA Today.
Questioned about reports of Taliban advances in the wake of Swat peace arrangement, Haqqani said Islamabad is very much conscious of the challenges facing it and with a strong central government and a large military it can stave off any militant threat.
At the same time, he called for understanding the situation in a proper perspective and not as projected in the exaggerated media reports that compare Pakistan to Afghanistan which fell to the Taliban in 1990s.
“So, we need to work together. But what I am saying essentially is that the developments of the last few days in Swat and Buner, though alarming, are not perilous.
And we need to understand, put them in context, build Pakistan’s military capacity in a manner in which we can have a successful counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategy.”
“In dealing with any insurgency, there are always a situation in which things turn good or bad, and we need to see a big picture. And the big picture is that the people of Pakistan do not want Taliban rule. They elected a government a year ago that is opposed to Taliban rule.”
Islamabad, he said, is in the process of devising a multifaceted strategy to counter the menace of violent extremism.
The strategy is likely to be completed before President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Washington in early May for White House meeting with President Barack Obama, he added.
“Pakistan will have a comprehensive national counterterrorism strategy, which will include a very strong military component, a political and a socio-economic component.”
“And we will be working with our partners in the United States on how to strengthen Pakistan’s capacity in dealing with the threat.”
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