ISLAMABAD — Claiming that it has bowed far enough to U.S. interests, Pakistan will use next week’s high-level talks with the Obama administration to seek more recognition for its part in the fight against terrorism and get Washington to acknowledge its concerns about rival India.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi will lead the talks in Washington on Wednesday to thrash out issues that have confounded relations between the two countries and contributed to mistrust and a pervasive anti-American feeling among Pakistanis.
“Villain, a scapegoat”
“Pakistan has done its bit! That is my answer,” Qureshi said in the run-up to the talks, which will cover security, economic development and a crippling energy crisis that leaves many parts of the country without electricity for up to eight hours a day. “We have already done too much.”
Retired Gen. Talat Masood said perceptions abroad of Pakistan as a “villain, a scapegoat” undermine relations and contribute to widespread anti-Americanism.
“In America, if anything or everything is going wrong in Afghanistan, it is blamed on Pakistan. When acts of terrorism occur, Pakistan is accused,” he said. “Similarly, in Pakistan, everything that goes wrong is blamed on the United States or India.”
Regional experts say Pakistan will be looking to Washington to recognize the threat it perceives from its eastern neighbor, India, against whom it has fought and lost three wars. Pakistan is concerned that Indian economic and political involvement in Afghanistan could lead to unfriendly governments on both its eastern and western borders.
Pakistan role “key”
Also, Qureshi said, Pakistan’s role is key to a stable Afghanistan, particularly over the next year as Washington moves closer to July 2011, when it hopes to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
“There is recognition in the world that Pakistan can play a key role in the stabilization of Afghanistan,” he said. “And Pakistan has been requested to play a role in the process of reconciliation in Afghanistan.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai just returned from a two-day trip to Islamabad where he thanked India for its help in reconstructing Afghanistan and told Pakistan — a nation he says is Afghanistan’s “twin” — that Kabul welcomed its help in making peace with the Taliban.
Also on the U.S.-Pakistan agenda is $1 billion the United States promised, but has not yet delivered, to Pakistan’s armed forces, military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas said Friday.
