Cross-border shelling : Karzai puts conditions on strategic pact with Pakistan

Afghan president demands end to anti-Afghan activities allegedly emanating from Pakistan.

KABUL:

President Hamid Karzai on Thursday addressed the possibility of signing a strategic pact with Pakistan, but said Kabul would want some preconditions before an agreement was inked.

Karzai predicted the US-led war on militancy would “not be successful from Afghanistan’s view” because it was being fought in Afghan villages, rather than against insurgents sheltering in neighbouring countries, an allusion to Pakistan.

“We are happy to have strategic relations with Pakistan. We want this strategic pact with Pakistan. But we want some conditions and preconditions from Pakistan.

“If these conditions are met — terrorism is stopped, extremism is dismantled, anti-Afghan activities are stopped, destruction of Afghanistan is stopped, friendship starts between the two countries which hasn’t happened so far — then a strategic pact would be signed between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said referring to the cross-border security pact aimed at ironing out security differences between the two countries.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been strained in recent months over cross-border shelling which Kabul blames on the Pakistan Army. Islamabad says the shelling is in retaliation for anti-government attacks launched by insurgents operating from mountain havens on Afghan soil.

Western media predictions

Karzai also criticised Western media on Thursday for gloomy predictions about Afghanistan’s future once US-led foreign forces withdraw from the war against Taliban insurgents in 2014.

“This is a pyschological war by the Western media against Afghanistan: once the foreign troops pull out, Afghanistan will be poor, there will be civil war and the Taliban will return, etcetera,” Karzai told a news conference.

The president said he had raised the issue with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a visit to the United States for the UN General Assembly last week.

“I believe if the objective is to influence future agreements on the number of US military bases, the presence of US troops beyond 2014 — it can’t achieve this through psychological war,” he said.

The United States has said it does not seek permanent bases in Afghanistan, but is expected to keep a small force in the country after 2014 for counter-terror operations. Details have not yet been agreed upon.

Karzai mentioned in particular The New York Times, BBC and CNN, adding, however, that “unfortunately, local media, television and radios and analysts are also predicting civil war in Afghanistan once foreign troops pull out”.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2012.