US-Pak Ties Need Improvement

By Zaheerul Hassan

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is visiting US from 20-23 October 2013, after his historic victory in May 11 elections of this year. US Secretary of State John Kerry had extended the invitation to Sharif to meet with Obama during the recent UN General Assembly meeting in New York.  In this connection  White House Spokesman Jay Carney stated that President Obama is looking forward to discuss with Prime Minister Sharif the ways of  stable, secure, prosperous Pakistan and matter of common interested related to regional security.

Notably, US Sectary of State John Kerry has is the most senior first US official who  has visited on 31 July 2013 and met  Nawaz Sharif when he has taken over as Prime Minister after May elections. During his visit he had called on former President, COAS, Advisor to PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, and officials of Foreign Office.  He also met PTI chief Imran Khan and exchanged views on various issues with John Kerry. Thus Obama must be very clear regarding Pakistan’s stance over regional, security, political, economic and others global issues.

According to foreign offices of both the countries the visit will provide opportunity in improving deteriorated Pak-US relationship, strengthening cooperation on issues of mutual concern, such as energy, trade and economic development, regional stability, revival of Strategic Dialogues and countering aggressive extremism.

 However, to achieve the narrated objectives and building up confidence in Pakistani masses, Washington has to take certain clear and visible steps like: stopping drone attacks, transferring drone technology to Islamabad, forcing  Afghan Government  to hand over TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) leaders Maulana Fazlullah, TTP’s former second-in-command Maulvi Faqir Mohammad and TTP second-in-command Latifullah Mehsud, to Pakistan. She has to ask her strategic partner India to stop funding anti-Pakistan elements. It is mentionable here that at the occasion of recent UN General Assembly meeting, Pakistani Prime Minister has already handed over the evidences of Indian involvement to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

American policy makers should also understand that Indian military and political top brass desire of gaining regional supremacy and domination is not possible in the presence of three atomic powers (China, Russia and Pakistan). They must perceive that supporting India at the cost of Pakistan is also one of the major factors in deteriorated relationship between Islamabad and Washington. They must also know that Indian design and motives are no more covert now. Nevertheless, we believe here that Indian hegemonic design is being backed by US. New Delhi always displayed cunning attitude and took actions to sabotage Pak-US relationship. Current violations of LoC and unprovoked Indian forces firing on International borders of Pasroor, Sialkot and Kashmir are efforts of diverting International community attention from Nawaz Shahrief US visit and undermining Pak-US leaders proposed talks. On 18 October 2013, three Pakistani citizens martyred due to Indian unprovoked firing. Thus, US should play her role to resolve the Kashmir issues as per UN resolutions which is real cause of the conflicts between two South Asian nuclear powers.

Washington should also realize that Pakistani will never like to compromise her national interest related to nuclear, Gas Pipeline with Iran, operating Gwadar with the help of China and would always has critical looks over Indo-US desire of  containing China, facilitating Israel against Iran and “123 Indo-U.S. Civil Nuclear Deal” .

American political and military elite should also find out that despite provision of maximum aid, why Pakistani masses do not consider US as their trustworthy friend and gulf in relationship is widening up day by day between two countries. It is probably due to some irresponsible statements of US officials about Pakistan’s nuclear programme,  supporting dictatorship for US interest, covert operations of CIA in collaboration with RAW, MI-6 and Mossad

 American intelligence agencies even sometime never did intelligence sharing with the host authorities despite carrying out operations from Pakistani territory. In this connection, the incident of U-2 of the past and drone attacks of the current era are the examples of miss trust between two states.  Porter writes in story, “the U.S, Central Intelligences’ refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned predator drones in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal religion, combined with recent revelations that CIA operatives have been paying Pakistan to identify the targets, suggest that managers of the drone attacks programmes have been using the total secrecy surrounding the programme to hide abuses and high civilian causalities”.

According to The South Asia Terrorism Portal from 2005 to till October 6, 2013 in 281 drone strikes, 2567 individuals have been killed and over 305 injured. The casualty tool includes innocent men, women and children too. People of terrorism affected Western province KPK think that Americans’ drones and TTP are in fact two real threats to them. Moreover, Obama should keep in mind that as first line ally, Pakistan is the only country that faced maximum losses in terms of lives and finances. It lost over 50000 civilians and $80 since 9/11.

Anyhow, under the guideline given of the recently held very high level meeting in Islamabad, agenda of Nawaz-Obama might have been prepared by the Foreign Office. The meeting was chaired by the Prime Minister himself and attended by foreign affairs adviser, Sartaj Aziz, Interior Minister Chaudary Nisar, Sharif’s special assistant, Tariq Fatemi, General Pervaiz Kayani and ISI Chief Lt General Zaheerul Islam. During this meeting complete action plan has been deliberated in the light of agenda of coming Pak-US leadership talks.

In short, Pakistani Prime Minister should remain firm while carrying out talks with President Obama. He should make Obama understand that Pakistan is the real stake holder that can play her positive role in establishing peace in the region and smooth withdrawal of ISAF forces in 2014. It is the Pakistan which can facilitate US-Taliban talks. Thus, Indian desire to have some role in Afghanistan can’t be acceptable to Pakistan. Anyhow for regional peace and avoidance of future atomic war, Prime Minister should ask United State to play her role in resolving Kashmir and other bilateral issues.

The writer can be approached through zameer36@gmail.com