I don’t know whom to deal with in Pakistan: Manmohan Singh
By newsadmin at 23 November, 2009, 8:34 pm
Washington: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says he does not know whom to deal with in Pakistan noting that the Army was the most powerful force in that country and that it was virtually wielding power.
“I think the most element force in Pakistan is the Army… We have to recognise that the power today virtually rests with the Army…I do not think whether we have a partner right now,” he said, adding, “I do not know whom to deal with.”
Singh also accused Pakistan of not doing enough to bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks observing that a “friendly” government there would be equally determined to tackle terrorism and take the case to its logical conclusion. “That is not happening,” he said.
“No, they (Pakistan) have not done enough,” Singh told CNN in an interview taken in New Delhi and aired minutes before the Prime Minister arrived in Washington on the first State Visit of the Obama Administration.
Asked if he believed the Pakistani Army was serious in tackling terrorists, Singh said he is not certain if the military will take on those elements.
“There is democracy. We would like democracy to succeed and flourish in Pakistan, but we have to recognise that the power today virtually rests with the Army,” he said.
The Prime Minister said he does not think that India has a partner in Pakistan today.
“I do not think whether we have a partner right now. I think, when General Pervez Musharraf (was the President) I was to ask him and he said well I am the Army, I represent the armed forces, I represent the people. Now I do not know whom to deal with,” he said.
Source: PTI
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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is currently about to experience American hospitality of the type associated with a full-blown state visit. Wearily true to form he is using the occasion to deliver unhelpful and negative statements about Pakistan that drip oil on the fires that burn between us. ‘We are not fully committed to Afghanistan’ and ‘Pakistan has nothing to fear from India’. With the greatest of brotherly respect Mr Singh, we have a considerable amount to fear from India. You are the bear growling at our backdoor, the fox that eyes our chickens and the Very Big Brother with a military stick that we know we would have difficulty countering were push to come to shove. You have regional superpower aspirations that we cannot match and the ear of the only other established superpower that cultivates you for its own interests. But wait… do you not also have the same problems of poverty as we do? The same threats to natural resources posed by global warming? No shortage of armed uprisings within your own borders? Are there not religious and sectarian atrocities reported on a daily basis and is there not an outbreak of witch-killing in your rural hinterlands that sees widowed women regularly hacked to death?
You are no less flawed than we are and yet it is we who are always seemingly ‘not doing enough’ and we who are the exporters of terrorism. Are you innocent, India? Free of stain and guilt? Have you never sent agents across our borders, sought to foment discontent and division where you saw opportunity or profit? Have you never done that to us, India? Have you not moved in on Afghanistan yourself as a significant donor, created diplomatic missions and sought to influence the Afghan government? And do we really use terror as an instrument of state policy – or is it that in geopolitical terms it is currently flavour-of-the-month to present Pakistan as a bubbling pot of wickedness? We have our faults and we are often poor at acknowledging them, but we are not the only baddies in this game, India. Yes, we would prefer peace if only because wars are expensive and often fail to solve problems. But peace is ill-served by a ritualised thrashing of a favourite scapegoat. So if it’s peace you seek, Manmohan Singh, find a different way of saying so. Believe us – we’ll listen if you do.