Foreign minister has said he will try to allay US fears about a pact with a group of militants in the troubled north-west, during a trip to Washington this week. Under the pact, the provincial government has agreed to restore sharia law in the Swat valley to pacify a growing militancy, sparking concerns that authorities were giving in to militants.
"God willing we will be able to allay the reservations they have expressed," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters in comments broadcast by PTV on Sunday.
"When we will explain them the local situation and objectives for which we have taken this measure and put across our point of view, I think...the confusion will be removed." Qureshi will be visiting the United States this week to take part in a US security policy review for the region.
Western officials fear the pact, like previous ones, will only encourage militancy in the region at a time when US President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 17,000 troops to go to Afghanistan amid a spiralling Taliban insurgency in the border regions with Pakistan. But officials defend the pact as the best available option to stem the riding tide of militancy rolling from the wild tribal regions on the Afghan border to the cities and towns across the country.
Obama, who has been in office for nearly a month, has made Afghanistan his top foreign policy priority and has ordered a policy review of the region to be completed before a Nato summit in April. Afghanistan's foreign minister will be leading his side in the policy review discussions in Washington. "I think Pakistan will encourage the US to do the same in Afghanistan because these groups are not monolithic entities. One has to look into their contradictions and see whether one can play on their divisions," security and political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said.
Maleeha Lodhi, former ambassador to the United States, in a recent newspaper article said Pakistan should also stress upon the United States to take into account Islamabad's security concerns with old rival India as its prepares to review its security policy. Qureshi is also expected to implead the US administration to cease missile strikes by pilotless drones against militant targets on Pakistani soil and call for increased US military as well as financial assistance to help it fight militancy and address it deep economic woes, analysts said.
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