ISLAMABAD, March 4: The Pakistani leadership on Saturday informed US President George W. Bush about its ‘holistic energy policy’ and its energy requirements, both nuclear and natural gas, for sustaining its economic growth.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said this while answering a question about the US-India nuclear pact at a news conference following talks between the leadership of the two countries.
Pakistan wants a similar treatment from the United States, Mr Kasuri said.
“We have a holistic energy policy and, frankly speaking we are already pursuing it. We are pursuing nuclear energy for civilian use in the shape of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-I and II. At the same time, we are also considering the Iran-Pakistan-India and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipelines,” he said.
In the one-to-one meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and President Bush as well as the delegation-level talks, the Pakistani side stressed that the country’s economy had been growing at a robust pace for the past few years.
“We need energy to maintain this growth momentum. Few years back, we had a projected gas reserves for 40 years. But after the economic turnover these reserves are now going to last for only 10 to 15 years,” the foreign minister pointed out.
He, however, acknowledged that Pakistan would have to do more to achieve the status India enjoyed, saying “India pursued its case for quite long as such things could not occur overnight.”
Pakistan, he said, would discuss its energy plan with US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, who would visit Islamabad soon.
The US-India nuclear pact still needed approval from the US Congress and the 45-member cartel of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, he said, adding that Pakistan would closely observe this process.
BILATERAL TIES: Mr Kasuri described Mr Bush’s visit as historic and important which would lay foundation for strategic, strong, stable, broad-based and long-term relationship between the two countries.
The foreign minister said Mr Bush had reiterated that Pakistan and India should resolve all their issues, including Kashmir, in a manner acceptable to all stakeholders.
AFGHANISTAN: Referring to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s allegations of cross-border infiltration, Mr Kasuri said it hurt Pakistan’s feelings when Kabul talked through media instead of sharing intelligence information with Islamabad.
He pointed out that Pakistan had lost 600 troops in Waziristan that was more than the total casualties suffered by US, International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan army during the war on terror.
“Mr Bush himself appreciates Pakistan’s role in the war on terror. We have documented proofs of our losses and achievements in the war on terror and we share these figures with the CIA. We don’t create figures but these are documented facts,” Mr Kasuri said.
In reply to questions about Washington’s suspicions regarding Pakistan’s role in the war on terror, he said if 130,000 American troops could not prevent daily bombings in Iraq it did not mean that the US army did not want to arrest Zarqawi. But, the logical answer to this question was that the US troops had failed to arrest Zarqawi. The issue was the level of resistance and the amount of challenge faced by the US troops. Same was the case with Pakistan.
“People are willing to die for their cause. Like the US, Pakistan is doing what it can but the level of resistance is great and Mr Bush is well aware of this resistance,” he maintained.
A stable Afghanistan, he said, was in the interest of Pakistan and that’s why it had deployed 80,000 of its troops along the Afghan border and had also donated $250 million for the reconstruction activities in that country.
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