ISLAMABAD US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson has made it clear that the trial of former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf under Article-6 of the constitution was Pakistan's internal matter.
'We wanted a safe exit for Musharraf from the presidency for political stability in Pakistan and now he has become a relic of the past and we have no position on him', she said in an exclusive interview with a private TV channel.
'It is regrettable that the expansion of the US embassy in Pakistan and talks about the purchase of the PC hotel have become such a hyped issue without any reason', she said, adding that houses had been rented in Islamabad keeping in view the needs of the diplomatic staff.
There are a total of eight marines in Pakistan while the media is reporting the arrival of 1,000 marines which is incorrect, she said. Answering a question, Patterson said that the Black water security agency was not operating anywhere in Pakistan.
She also rejected a statement by Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin in which he claimed that Pakistan had received only $970 million since the PPP led government came into office. Patterson said that the Pakistani government had been given $3 billion to date.
Pakistan is being projected negatively in the US media while America is being projected negatively in the Pakistani media, she admitted.
Meanwhile in an interview with a US newspaper Patterson said that despite the growing US military losses in Afghanistan, Pakistan still refuses to target extremist groups on its soil that are the biggest threat to the American-led mission there.
Eight years after Washington and Islamabad agreed to fight the Taliban and al Qaida, Pakistan has 'different priorities' from the US, said the ambassador.
Pakistani officials, however, say that their country's priority should be to tackle militants who threaten Pakistan. They charge that the US is blind to Pakistan's concerns over traditional foe India as it presses Pakistan to redeploy forces from its eastern border with India to the western border with Afghanistan.
'My own view is that the Haqqani group is the biggest threat (in Afghanistan). The Quetta Shura, yes, is sort of a command and control. They move in and out of Afghanistan. But the Haqqani group has ... shown the ability to reach all the way to Kabul with these huge attacks, which not only kill loads of people but are also politically destabilizing,' said Patterson.
Nevertheless, Patterson said that Pakistan had 'taken more action against some of these groups than most people are aware of.'
Pakistan says that the US has failed to provide it with the right military hardware for the anti-terror fight. Islamabad also thinks that international forces in Afghanistan haven't been effective in sealing their side of the largely unmarked, porous border, so Afghan extremists infiltrate Pakistan and fight the Pakistani army in the tribal area, especially the Bajaur region.
'We have complained and informed them (Nato) that the strength they have on their side of the border (in Afghanistan) is not even a tenth of what we have on our side,' said Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, who added that 'obviously the threat (in Pakistan) that's more significant will be taken care of first.'—Online
