By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : The US is seeking to underplay the decision of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to pull out from a Washington-brokered peace conclave in Kabul amid reports of an impending state of emergency in Islamabad.
US media reports suggested that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to Musharraf in the early hours Thursday in Pakistan to allay fears that its key ally’s absence from the high-profile meeting reflected divisions in the “war on terror”.
Earlier officials said Washington understood that Musharraf had compelling reasons for not attending the talks aimed at bringing together tribal leaders from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region which US intelligence believes has become a safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.
Musharraf, they said, had telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to tell him that he was sending Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in his place and to assure him that “peace jirga” talks had Islamabad’s full support.
“President Musharraf certainly wouldn’t stay back in Islamabad if he didn’t believe he had good and compelling reasons to stay back,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack Wednesday. “Certainly we would understand that.”
Washington has spoken to both Musharraf and Karzai, he said. “What’s important here is that you have the support of both presidents for this process. Both of them have an interest in seeing this process succeed” and in cooperating to fight violent extremism.
White House spokesman Tony Snow too underlined the need to attain the jirga’s objective of quelling escalating terrorist activities. “The most important thing to do right now is to figure out what the jirga achieves.”
“This is obviously important,” he said declining to consider Musharraf’s absence as a setback. “You’ve got Pashtun leaders from both sides of the border. They’re talking about something that’s very important, to build greater confidence and security, and to try to avoid the problem not only of the gaining strength of radical forces within some of the tribal areas in Pakistan, but also stopping cross-border incursions, which has continued to be a source of concern for the Afghans.”
The jirga announced Monday after a two-day meeting between Karzai and US President George W. Bush at his Camp David retreat was projected as a key peace initiative resulting from a tripartite summit in Washington last September.
Asked if the White House was concerned, as Karzai seemed to be friendlier toward Pakistan after the Camp David meeting with Bush, Snow said, “I think what you’re trying to do is to create a personal fight here, and I don’t think it exists.”
US officials have in recent days accused Pakistan of not doing enough to crack down on Taliban and Al Qaeda sanctuaries in its tribal areas with Democratic presidential hopeful Barrack Obama threatening unilateral air strikes on Pakistani territory to root them out.
McCormack said Pakistani officials had discussed Musharraf’s reason for skipping the meeting with US and Afghan officials, but he would not elaborate on Pakistan’s explanation.
Refusing to take Musharraf’s absence as a “rebuff”, he said, “The two presidents (Karzai and Musharraf) have talked about this and I’m sure that they have an understanding of the motivations and the reasons for President Musharraf staying back in Islamabad for this particular meeting.
“In terms of diplomacy, the process is moving forward, and that’s what’s important. Both of them have an interest in seeing this process succeed and they both have an interest in seeing greater cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan in fighting violent extremism.
“It’s important to the future of both countries and I think they understand what is at stake, and that understanding is manifested by the fact that this meeting is moving forward,” he said.