Pakistan wants US “to succeed in Afghanistan”: Husain Haqqani
April 28th, 2011 - 5:45 pm ICT by ANI
Washington, April 28(ANI): Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, has rejected the assertions made in a recent The Wall Street Journal report, which said that Islamabad was urging Afghan President Hamid Karzai to dump the United States, and instead team up with Pakistan for a solution to the decade-old conflict in Afghanistan.
“Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan’s president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan-and its Chinese ally-for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy, Afghan officials say,” the WSJ article had said.
“The pitch was made at an April 16 meeting in Kabul by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who bluntly told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Americans had failed them both, according to Afghans familiar with the meeting. Mr. Karzai should forget about allowing a long-term U.S. military presence in his country, Mr. Gilani said, according to the Afghan,” it added.
“I am here to confirm that Pakistan has told the United States that we will be working together on Afghanistan,” APP quoted Haqqani, as telling MSNBC in a live interview.
“Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States will resolve this as allies and partners. And neither one of us needs to lie to the other,” he added.
The WSJ article had said that Pakistan’s bid to “cut the U.S. out of Afghanistan’s future is the clearest sign to date that, as the nearly 10-year war’s endgame begins, tensions between Washington and Islamabad threaten to scuttle America’s prospects of ending the conflict on its own terms.”
However, Haqqani said that Pakistan wants the US to succeed in Afghanistan.
“We want Afghanistan to be a stable state in our neighbourhood. We want the United States to succeed in Afghanistan. We intend to work with the US,” he said.
The democratic government in Pakistan that took over in 2008 has come a long way in building a strategic partnership between Pakistan and the US.
“It will take a little more time to overcome the burden of history,” said Haqqani. (ANI)
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