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Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Better Indo-Pak ties beneficial for everyone: McChrystal
* ISAF commander says friction between the two countries can affect Afghanistan in a huge way
* Pakistan conducting effective campaign against terroristsISLAMABAD: Improvement in relations between India and Pakistan are beneficial for everyone including the US, General Stanley McChrystal said on Tuesday.
The top US commander in Afghanistan said this in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Commenting on Pakistan-India relations over the Afghanistan issue, he said everything in the region affects everybody else.
Pakistan is clearly affected by a number of actors, India being large, and Afghanistan is affected by a huge number of actors as well, he added.
“I think the better we can make India and Pakistan relations, the better it is for everyone, particularly a relatively weak nation like Afghanistan right now because as those two significant nations have friction sometimes, it can affect Afghanistan in ways that are just huge,” said McChrystal.
He said it’s important that transparency and trust with India be part of that calculation. Clearly Pakistanis are worried about Indian activities inside Afghanistan and often there’s a lot of misperception associated with those, so I think clarity there is essential. Pakistan is launching an effective counter insurgency campaign against terrorism through a number of forces and they’ve really focused on doing things right.
Commenting on Pakistan’s counter insurgency campaign McChrystal said, “They are focused on doing the right thing, that is why their coordination with the US forces has been much closer.”
He said there is still a significant distance to go. “The Pakistanis are sometimes frustrated by our campaign plan and we are sometimes frustrated by theirs, but I don’t think that’s unheard of between allies,” McChrystal said.
About greater alignment of interests between the US and Pakistan, he said that the interests of the two countries have been aligning over time but there are times when these interests become more obvious.
McChrystal said that the increase in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, which was an internal matter, had made Islamabad realise that it needed to adopt an effective programme to counter the menace. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk