By APP,
Washington : Asserting that unilateral actions by Afghanistan-based coalition forces on the Pakistani side of the border prove counter-productive in the war on terror, Ambassador Husain Haqqani Friday urged patience and cooperative efforts as there is no short-term solution to the menace of terrorism.
Husain Haqqani said the fight against terrorism is going to be a long struggle and “has to have much more than a military component.”
“It has to have political, ideological, and socio-economic components, you have to go to the roots— none of them are mutually exclusive and none of them are the only factor—it is a combination of factors,” he stated at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He argued the fight against terrorism is “not a war that is going to be won under one president or through short measures.”
Haqqani also called for a holistic approach and highlighted the need to look at its various components in the fight against terrorism.
“There is a component of Pakistan-Afghan relations. Let us deal with that as Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, not just under the broad rubric of war against terror. There is a component of India-Pakistan relations, let’s look at it as India-Pakistan relations, not under the broad rubric of war.”
Similarly, there is the question of de-militarizing and de-commissioning militant groups in Pakistan and observed that the phenomenon has a law enforcement component as well.
Holding out the civilian elected government’s commitment to pursue war on terror in all its dimensions, he said, the leadership has made a decision to take anti-terrorism actions on its soil and not allow any foreign troops, he added.
The envoy underlined the need for greater intelligence sharing in pursuing terrorists along Pakistan-Afghanistan borderr. He also cited Pakistani military’s operations against terrorists in the last few weeks that eliminated a number of militants.
He pointed out incidents like this week’s raid in Angoor Adda border area where the American troops landed, got no one, killed no one significant are not going to help in an environment in which people get enraged.
“We need more Pakistanis to understand the American perspective and be sympathetic to it rather than enrage more Pakistanis against the United States.”
So cooperative relationship between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States should be the foundation of efforts against terrorism, “not unilateral actions that are going to enrage more and more Pakistanis and thereby do the work of the militants by creating more support for them amongst the people,” he added.
He said, the solutions will not necessarily be the one that people recommend.”For example if people think that bombing villages in the federally administered tribal areas will bring an end to terrorism, that is not necessarily the view of the Pakistani government, it won’t.
Perhaps there will be a combination of engagement and military action —There are reconcilable people in the tribal areas and there are irreconcilable people — there are foreigners who have a global agenda and there are people who have just been motivated and got involved in militant activities because of circumstance that have erupted since 9/11.”
“So if they can all be dealt differently as required, then we will have more comprehensive and successful strategy in the war against terror.”
He urged a “combination of patience and willingness to understand the domestic dynamics and understanding that there is an India-Pakistan dimension to Pakistani policy concerns.”
On US-Pakistan relations, he said, they are resilient and would not let difficulties come in their way.
Pakistan, he said, expects the United States to prevail upon its NATO allies and Afghanistan to look upon Pakistan as the partner it is.
The most important thing in terms of the US policy toward Paksitan is that the United States has to recognize that Pakistan is a significant and important country “under all circumstances,” as a nuclear-armed nation that has demonstrated its nuclear weapons capability, as a nation of 160-million people, majority Muslim country, a strategically located nation on the cross-roads of the Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia.
“Pakistan is important in its own right. I think it is time to engage Pakistan on a long-term basis,” he stressed.