The United States should dedicate robust economic assistance for uplift of Pakistan's people along the Afghan border and also help resolve Pakistan's security concerns by engaging Islamabad and New Delhi as part of a regional solution to the Afghanistan conflict, a new study by a Washington think-tank said on Tuesday.
The research, released by the US Institute of Peace, acknowledges that Pakistan "has legitimate security interests in its region and it has few conventional political, military, or diplomatic tools to achieve its interests."
Moreover, "its key neighbours, India and Afghanistan, have shown resolute disinterest in accommodating Pakistan's security concerns," authors Christine Fair and Seth Jones point out in the study entitled 'Securing Afghanistan', which stresses solutions to a spate of problems inside Afghanistan as well as broader considerations for a realistic way forward in the insurgency-wracked country.
The two experts note that the United States and its allies have also shown little inclination to promote regional solutions that would help resolve Pakistan's legitimate concerns. "Since joining hands with Washington, Pakistan's security concerns have worsened rather than improved. The United States and the international community should acknowledge these realities," they point out.
The study came as US special envoy Richard Holbrooke visited India on the last leg of his first South Asian visit, which also took him to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The two experts say that Washington should encourage Pakistan for sustained efforts against al Qaeda and Taliban militants and, at the same time, suggest linking some US assistance to the country's security efforts against militants in the border region. "Washington needs to make a concerted effort to engage both Pakistan and India, which have competing interests in Afghanistan.
"Transforming regional security perceptions among the Afghans, Pakistanis, and Indians will be a monumental challenge, but constitutes the only way to stabilise and secure Afghanistan so that it does not again become a terrorist sanctuary."
It says: "Washington will have to step up diplomacy in South Asia, with particular focus on promoting regional co-operation among all three countries and defusing conflict between New Delhi and Islamabad, on the one hand, and Kabul and Islamabad, on the other."
Favouring support for economic development in the impoverished tribal areas, the report says that currently, international reconstruction and development assistance has focused on the Afghan side of the border. "But this strategy is a half-measure. International assistance needs to be directed toward Pakistan's tribal areas, not just Afghanistan."