Pakistan used terror as a hedge: Clinton

Clinton says Pakistan used terrorist outfits against its neighbours to not have its position undermined by them.

WASHINGTON:

Pakistan has supported terror outfits as a hedge against India and an unfriendly Afghan regime in the past, said US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in an ABC News interview, the transcripts of which were released by the state department.

“By supporting groups that will be their proxies, Pakistan has tried to prevent India or an unfriendly Afghan regime to undermine its position,” she said. However, Clinton said that things are changing and that she can no longer confirm whether Pakistan is still using terror as a weapon against India and Afghanistan.

The US secretary of state accepted that the US had created certain radical outfits and supported terrorists like Osama bin Laden to fight against the erstwhile Soviet Union, but that the backing had boomeranged. “Part of what we are fighting against right now, the United States has created. We created the Mujahideen force against the Soviet Union. We trained them, we equipped them, we funded them, including Osama bin Laden. But it did not work out so well for us,” she said.

Clinton said that Pakistan is paying a “big price” for supporting the US war against terror groups. “I think it is important to note that as they have made these adjustments in their own assessments of their national interests, they are paying a big price for it. It is not an easy calculation to make. But we are making progress in Afghanistan. We have a long way to go and we cannot be impatient. Well, the headlines are bad. We are going home. We cannot do that.” Appearing on the same ABC show, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said that Pakistan has withdrawn an equivalent of about six divisions of its army from the Indian border and moved them to attack the Taliban. “They are attacking the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and their safe havens that are a problem for us,” he said. “But there is a trust deficit in both the countries. Pakistan and Afghanistan believe that we walked away from them at the toughest moments of their history. You cannot recreate that trust in a heartbeat,” he added. Gates acknowledged that both the countries are worried that US would leave whether problems in Afghanistan are solved or not, leaving “whatever remains in their hands to deal with”.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2010.