October 25- US President Barack Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met in the White House on Wednesday to repair ties between their countries. The two are allies at the government level but only 10 per cent Americans believe that Pakistan can be trusted, Pakistanis feel the same for America. But they are in a typical abusive relationship that sustains only because both need each other.
Pakistan needs American military hardware and handouts, a $1.6 billion packet was just handed to Sharif. America needs Pakistan in its war on terror, the need will remain desperate till American troops are out of Afghanistan.
Nawaz Sharif went ballistic about the drones that hit Pakistani soil and kill a lot of people, sometimes innocent Pakistanis.
America uses these unmanned aerial vehicles to avoid chasing terrorists on Pakistani soil. Entering Pakistan and killing Osama bin Laden was an exception while drone attacks are routine in the US pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.
Drone attacks have become a “major irritant” in Pakistan and Sharif paid lip service to assuage feelings back home. He said that drone strikes had “deeply disturbed and agitated” the Pakistani people and that his government was committed to bringing them to an end. “The use of drones is not only a violation of our territorial integrity but they are also detrimental to our efforts to eliminate terrorism from our country,” he said.
Obama gave him no assurance on policy. Instead, somebody leaked CIA documents that show that the Pakistanis have only been pretending to protest, because drone strikes and targets are discussed with them and in most cases they are hand-in-glove with the Americans. The Washington Post report punctured Pakistani claims of being a victim of the drone attacks.
Obama heard Sharif’s point about drones but didn’t give it any importance. On the other hand, he made it clear that his country wasn’t doing all it could to fight the war on terror.
“He asked, why the trial of the Mumbai terrorist attack in India has not started yet,” Sharif told reporters after his two-hour meeting with Obama at the Oval Office of the White House. The US President also brought up the issue of Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), cross-border terrorism and Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA track down al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and has been imprisoned.
The meeting was being watched by the Indian government with a lot of interest, as ceasefire violations along the LoC and border with Pakistan have seen a drastic increase in recent times. The already tense ties between the two neighbours have gone worse.
Now some expect the tension to go down as Obama seems to have flatly rejected Pakistan’s request to intervene in Kashmir. By first raising tension along the border then raking it with Obama was a strategy, some say, but Obama called Sharif’s bluff. Both the countries have fought wars and Pakistan often describes the region as a nuclear flashpoint so that the world pays attention.
The Obama-Sharif joint statement noted that “the two Leaders stressed that improvement in Pakistan-India bilateral relations would greatly enhance prospects for lasting regional peace, stability, and prosperity, as it would significantly benefit the lives of citizens on both sides of the border.”
According to an IANS report, the joint statement mentioned “terrorism” 13 times saying both leaders “condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. The word nuclear too figured ten times in the joint statement, not in the context of an India-type civil nuclear deal that Sharif wanted, but in the context of nuclear terrorism.
Sharif is not returning empty-handed, after all $1.6 billion is quite a handful. But on US policies towards Pakistan, or even South Asian, Nawaz Sharif has clearly been told to take the money and shut up.
-Indiatoday
