By IANS,
Washington: Ahead of its first strategic dialogue with the US, Pakistan has sought expanded military aid, an India type civil nuclear deal and a direct US role in reviving the peace process with India, according to a media report.
The demands have been made in a 56-page document sent to the US ahead of Wednesday’s talks in what some American officials believe is an implicit offer to crack down on the Afghan Taliban in return, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Raising concerns about India’s effort to modernise its military, in part through buying US equipment and weapons, the document urges Washington to take a direct role in reviving the peace process between India and Pakistan stalled since the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Journal said.
Some of Pakistan’s requests are likely non-starters, the daily said noting India has steadfastly refused any outside mediation in its decades-long dispute with Pakistan. A civilian nuclear deal would also be a tough sell given Pakistan’s history of nuclear weapons proliferation, it said citing US officials.
The Pakistani delegation for Wednesday’s strategic dialogue, co-chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, includes army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Lt Gen Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan’s spy agency.
The previously undisclosed document includes requests ranging from US help to alleviate Pakistan’s chronic water and power shortages to pleas for surveillance aircraft and a role in any future peace talks between the Western-backed Afghan government and the Taliban, it said.
Pakistan has also sought greater cooperation between its spy agency and US intelligence outfits, more helicopter gunships and other military hardware needed to battle its own Taliban insurgency, and improved surveillance technology, such as pilotless drone aircraft, the daily said citing American and Pakistani officials.
US officials, it said have complained that Pakistan’s intelligence services continued to offer clandestine support to the Taliban, which it has long viewed as a proxy it could use to secure its influence in Afghanistan and keep India out after an eventual US withdrawal.