By Our Correspondent
Thursday, 23 Apr, 2009 | 02:27 AM PST
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listens during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill April 22, 2009 in Washington.—AFP
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday she believed the Pakistani government was abdicating to the Taliban and other militants.
In a testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mrs Clinton warned that nuclear-armed Pakistan was becoming a ‘mortal threat’ to the world.
‘I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists,’ Mrs Clinton said.
She was referring to a deal Pakistan concluded with the Taliban militants in Swat, which gives them complete control over the valley. On Tuesday, the militants also took over Buner, just 60 miles from Islamabad.
Mrs Clinton also urged Pakistanis, living both in and outside the country, to realise how terrorism threatened the very existence of their state.
‘Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world,’ Mrs Clinton said.
‘And I want to take this occasion ... to state unequivocally that not only do the Pakistani government officials, but the Pakistani people and the Pakistani diaspora ... need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents.’
Mrs Clinton said the Pakistani government had to deliver basic services to its people or it would find itself losing ground to the Taliban, whose influence had spread in northern Pakistan and had raised concerns about the stability of the country.
‘The government of Pakistan ... must begin to deliver government services, otherwise they are going to lose out to those who show up and claim that they can solve people’s problems and then they will impose this harsh form of oppression on women and others,’ she said.
‘(We) cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances now within hours of Islamabad that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state,’ Mrs Clinton said.
‘I don’t hear that kind of outrage or concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan,’ she said.
Congressman Howard Berman, the chairman of the committee, also raised serious concerns about the state of Pakistan.
‘In recent weeks, extremists based in the western border regions have turned their guns on the Pakistani state, launching dramatic suicide attacks in the population centres of Islamabad and Lahore,’ Mr Berman said.
‘Equally troubling, the Pakistani government has cut a deal with the extremists that overran the Swat Valley — the latest in a string of failed agreements that has only emboldened the radicals.’
Mrs Clinton said President Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, unveiled in March, included a focus on flushing Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan and on boosting civilian efforts to build up both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Also on Wednesday, the top US military commander Admiral Michael Mullen arrived in Islamabad from Kabul for meetings with Pakistani officials.
Another US general, David Petraeus, told a Harvard forum on Tuesday that the ‘military situation in Afghanistan will probably deteriorate in the near term’. He said: ‘We do believe we can achieve progress, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better. ... There will be tough months ahead.’
Admiral Mullen told NBC news he was concerned about the prospect of both Afghanistan and Pakistan descending into chaos. ‘Pakistan — it’s a country that has nuclear weapons. My long-term worry is that descent ... should it continue, gives us the worst possible outcome there,’ he said.
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