News
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
War in Afghanistan destabilising Pakistan, says Zardari
* President says security situation undercutting efforts to strengthen democratic institutions
* Some US politicians show limited understanding of impact of US policies
ISLAMABAD: The war in Afghanistan is destabilising Pakistan and undermining efforts to restore its democratic institutions and economic prosperity, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday.
The president, in an interview with the British daily The Guardian, pointed to the widespread concern in Pakistan at the slow paced efforts to end the Afghan conflict, and said that some US politicians showed a limited understanding of the impact of the US policies.
“Just as the Mexican drug war on the US borders makes a difference to Texas and the American society, we are talking about a war on our border which is obviously having an effect on the people,” Zardari said.
Reacting to a White House report, President Zardari said, some members of congress and the US media did not know what they were talking about when it came to Pakistan.
“The US has been an ally of Pakistan for the last 60 years. We respect and appreciate their political system. So every time a new parliament comes in, new representatives come in and it takes them time to understand the international situation,” Zardari said.
However, he made it clear that there were no short-term answers and it was very difficult to make the US taxpayer understand, he said.
President Zardari said Pakistan had been in a state of “security alert” for several decades, and pointed to the fact that, “Our emphasis has been on security rather than our commerce and we need commerce for our survival.”
“We have all the gas in the world waiting to go through to markets in India and the Red Sea, but it cannot be brought in until the Afghanistan issue is settled. So Afghanistan is a growth issue for us. I think most of the time, the quantification of the effect of the war is not calculated [by the US],” he said.
The president said, Pakistan was a high fuel-importing country, and the fuel prices were constantly rising.
“Because of the war, the industry in one of our provinces has practically closed down ... when one whole sector is not working, there is an effect on the other sectors,” he said. The newspaper, quoting senior intelligence officials, stated that the “Operations by the law enforcement agencies against terrorists and miscreants” has cost the Pakistani economy approximately $68 billion since 2001.
More than 33,300 Pakistani civilians and military personnel have been killed or seriously injured in the war on terror. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk