RELATIONSHIP MORE HONEST NOW, SAYS OBAMA

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has said the relationship between the United States and Pakistan has become more honest over time.

In his first interview since Wednesday evening when he announced his new strategy for the Pak-Afghan region, President Obama also acknowledged that the US focus had shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan. “I think the focus shifted to Pakistan, in my view, two years ago. So we’ve sought to strengthen cooperation with Pakistan,” he told Voice of America, the US government’s international broadcasting service. “Obviously, that has created tensions as well, but overall Pakistan has cooperated with us in our intelligence-collection efforts, in striking at high-value targets within Pakistan.”

Mr.Obama said he believed that no country had suffered more from terrorist attacks than Pakistan, “so this is entirely in their self-interest” to combat terrorism. Explaining his focus-shift, Mr Obama said events forced him to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a similar problem.

Pakistan’s tribal areas, he said, provided Al Qaeda and other extremists groups with safe havens from where they launched attacks into Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world. Like his secretary of state, Mr.Obama also said that he believed Pakistan had a legitimate role to play as part of the process of reconciliation with the insurgents.

He also noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently travelled to Islamabad where he agreed to form a core group, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. This group would “discuss how we can proceed in this process”, Mr.Obama said, noting that Pakistan not only had a responsibility but also “a deep interest in dealing with the terrorist elements that are still in their territory”.

Asked if the US-Pakistan relationship had soured, Mr.Obama said: “I think what happened is that the relationship has become more honest over time.” This openness, he said, had raised “some differences that are real” and the operation to take out Osama bin Laden created additional tensions.

“But I had always been very clear to Pakistan that if we ever found him and had a shot, that we would take it,” he added. “We think that if Pakistan recognises the threat to its sovereignty that comes out of the extremists in its midst, that there’s no reason why we can’t work cooperatively to make sure that both US security interests, Pakistani security interests, and Afghan security interests converge.” Asked if Pakistan has to play a greater role against terrorism, Mr.Obama said: “I think that Pakistan has always seen terrorism as either a problem for somebody else, or has seen elements of the Taliban as a hedge in terms of their influence within Afghanistan.” The US, he said, had suggested to Pakistan that not only terrorism threatened Pakistan more than just about any other country, but it also strained its relations with its neighbours and with friends like the United States.

The US had also informed the Pakistanis that if they had “direct” and “constructive” relationship with the Afghan government, “there’s no reason for them to see the Taliban as a hedge against Afghanistan. Instead, they should see the Afghan government as a partner they can work with”.

PAKISTANI LEADERS WEREN’T AWARE OF OSAMA PRESENCE

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration has sent a letter to Congress, assuring the lawmakers that senior military and civilian leaders in Pakistan were not aware of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.

The letter, signed by US special envoy Mark Grossman, aims at curbing rapidly growing anti-Pakistan feelings in Congress where lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties are demanding new restrictions on aid to Islamabad.

Ten US senators had sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to explain why the United States should continue to provide civil and military aid to Pakistan after the May 2 raid on Bin Laden’s compound.

In the letter to the lawmakers sent on Thursday, Ambassador Grossman says: “We see no evidence to indicate that anyone at the highest levels of the government of Pakistan knew that Bin Laden was living in Pakistan.”

“Now, that may be true, but I don’t think there’s an American who believes that,” said Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, while commenting on Mr Grossman’s response. And he was assured by a person no less than the secretary of state that her envoy was right. At a congressional hearing on Thursday evening, she told Senator Menendez: “We have looked very hard and scrubbed all of the intelligence that we have. And … the conclusion Ambassador Grossman gave you in the letter is the one we have reached.”

But then she also raised the doubts that are often expressed across America: “We do not in any way rule out or absolve those who are at lower levels, who may very well have been enablers and protectors. Now, the fair question is, were they protecting their higher-ups? Could be. Was it one of these kinds of a wink and a nod? Maybe so.”

Realising that her statement could have raised more doubts than it answered, Secretary Clinton hastened to add: “But in looking at every scrap of information we have, we think that the highest levels of the government were genuinely surprised.”

If senior Pakistani leaders had reasons to believe that Bin Laden was hiding in their country, they thought he was in the tribal areas, protected by the Taliban or by the Haqqani network, she said. “But they did not know and we have no reason to believe that they are running some massive deception on us to that point.” Secretary Clinton then explained why the US wanted to continue to engage Pakistan despite the problems it was having in maintaining this relationship. “It is our conclusion that we have to continue to try to pull and push to get it more right than wrong,” she said.

“So, for example, when it comes to our military aid… we are not prepared to continue providing that at the pace we were providing it unless and until we see certain steps taken,” she added.

“We’re trying to play this orchestra the best we can, where we look in one direction and say to those who we think are largely responsible for the difficulties we know that exist within Pakistan, you can’t continue doing that. “But, on the other hand, we have a democratically elected government which has made some courageous decisions despite the challenges.”

Secretary Clinton said that during her last visit to Islamabad, she had a “very emotional meeting” with President Asif Ali Zardari who said to her: “Look — Al Qaeda was in league with the people who killed my wife! I would never have turned a blind eye if I had known anything.”

PML-N LEADER NAWAZ SHARIF REJECTS ABBOTTABAD COMMISSION

MUZAFFARABAD: PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday that the US raid on Abbottabad was a severe violation of country`s sovereignty and “we do not accept the commission set up by the government to probe the incident because it has been constituted without our consultation”.

Regarding the commission on the murder of journalist Saleem Shehzad, he said let`s wait to see what came out of it. Addressing an election rally in Rawalakot, Mr Sharif said he had launched his party in Azad Kashmir primarily to put an end to the practice of “coronation of courtiers” in disregard of the mandate given by people in the region`s elections.

“We know where the decisions about party tickets of candidates are taken, who makes and breaks governments and where prime ministers are made. People of AJK should also realise it,” he said. “But we will not let this game to continue and will uncover all rigging plans,” he added.

The PML-N leader, who has launched an offensive on the PPP-led federal government and those “who breach the Constitution” in Pakistan, said fake democracies had also harmed the Kashmir cause. He alleged that corruption was rife in Islamabad and corrupt persons were picked to hold key posts in government and semi-government institutions.

Mr Sharif said the looted money stashed in Swiss banks belonged to the people of Pakistan and it should be brought back to the country. He asked the people of Azad Kashmir not to be deceived by “false promises and hollow claims” of the PPP and see for themselves what its government had done to the people of Pakistan. Warning against use of negative tactics to influence the polls, he declared that the PML-N would ensure that there was no rigging in the election.

ABBOTTABAD RAID AND SALEEM SHAHZAD COMMISSIONS SET UP

ISLAMABAD, June 21: Acting rather swiftly after the Supreme Court had named the heads of inquiry commissions on the killings of Osama bin Laden and journalist Saleem Shahzad, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced on Tuesday the names of their members.

According to a handout, Prime Minister Gilani approved summaries sent by the ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs proposing the constitution of inquiry commissions. The complexion of the Abbottabad commission would remain the same as earlier announced by the government, except Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim who had refused to be its member. Justice Javed Iqbal, senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court, will lead the probe into circumstances under which OBL was killed in a covert US military operation.

Other members of the commission are Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed, former inspector general of police Abbas Khan and former ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, with Cabinet Division Secretary Nargis Sethi as its secretary. The ministry of interior will provide secretarial support.

The terms of reference of the commission are: (a) to ascertain full facts regarding the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan; (b) investigate circumstances and facts regarding the US operation in Abbottabad on 2nd May, 2011; (c) determine the nature, background and causes of lapses of authorities concerned, if any; and (d) make consequential recommendations. A couple of changes have been made in the commission proposed earlier on the killing of Saleem Shahzad. Instead of the additional inspector general (investigation) of Punjab and deputy inspector general of Islamabad police, the inspectors general have been made part of the new commission.

It will be headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and include Federal Shariat Court Chief Justice Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan and the president of the Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ). This commission has been asked: (i) to inquire into the background and circumstances of abduction and subsequent murder of Saleem Shahzad; (ii) to identify culprits involved in the abduction and subsequent murder; (iii) recommend measures to prevent recurrence of such gruesome incidents against journalists in future and (iv) to probe the matters of conduct which are in derogation of Articles 4,9,17, 19 and 19A of the Constitution and investigate in-depth such background facts. The secretary for information and broadcasting will act as secretary of the commission.

Unlike the Abbottabad commission whose terms of reference don’t include any timeframe, the tribunal on the killing of the journalist will submit its report within six weeks. The information ministry will provide secretarial support to the commission. The PML-N, the main opposition party, has once again rejected the constitution of the Abbottabad tribunal, terming it an insult to the May 14 resolution of a joint sitting of both houses of parliament that had called for consultation with the leader of opposition before its announcement.

The party’s spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said an inquiry through national consensus was needed, but the government appeared to have decided to condemn the parliamentary resolution to dustbin. Meanwhile, talking to reporters at a function held by the Benazir Income Support Programme the prime minister said the Supreme Court had given its ruling on the constitution of the commissions and no one should question their credibility.

He said the government had earlier made Justice (retd) Ebrahim a member of the Abbottabad commission on the recommendation of the leader of opposition in the National Assembly, but he had withdrawn his name, saying he had not been consulted by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. The prime minister said the government had been consulting all political parties on important national issues. “Since the Abbottabad commission has been put in place, nobody should jump to conclusions,” he said. He said state institutions, including intelligence agencies, should be supported.