US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to build bridges with the next generation of Pakistan’s military leaders yesterday and end a “trust deficit” that he said has hampered cooperation against Islamist militancy.
Speaking at Pakistan’s most prestigious military academy, the National Defence University, Gates said distrust between the allies had been compounded by an organized propaganda campaign orchestrated by their common enemy.
Gates said he had been in government when the US made a “grave mistake” by abandoning Afghanistan and cutting defense ties with Pakistan after US and Pakistani-backed Afghan guerrillas drove Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989.
“That is largely the reason for a very real and very understandable trust deficit — one that has made it more difficult for us to work together to confront the common threat of extremism,” he said.
FACTIONS
Gates arrived in Pakistan on Thursday, urging Pakistan to root out Afghan Taliban factions based in its northwestern border enclaves from where they have been orchestrating an intensified insurgency in Afghanistan.
But Gates has been careful not to repeat the usual US call for Pakistan to “do more” in the fight against militants, a demand that has infuriated Pakistan, which has lost about 2,000 soldiers fighting militants.
Islamabad has mounted big offensives against Pakistani Taliban factions attacking the state, but has resisted US pressure to go after Afghan Taliban in border enclaves who do not strike in Pakistan but cross the border to fight US troops.
Analysts say Pakistan sees the Afghan Taliban as a tool to counter the growing influence of old rival India in Afghanistan and as a potential ally if US forces withdraw and, as many Pakistanis fear, again leave that country in chaos.
Gates commended the Pakistani military’s success against militants since early last year and also called for it to pressure Afghan factions.
“Only by pressuring these groups on both sides of the border will Afghanistan and Pakistan be able to rid themselves of this scourge,” he said.
But at the same time, Gates said that it was up to Pakistan to decide on the timing of its action.
“The Pakistani leadership will make its own decisions about what the best timing for their military operations is, about when they are ready to do something or whether they are going to do it at all,” Gates told reporters earlier yesterday.
SKEPTICAL
Many Pakistanis are deeply skeptical of the US war on militancy, believing it is aimed at suppressing Muslims. Many also believe the US wants to confiscate its nuclear weapons.
Gates said rebuilding relationships with the new generation of Pakistani officers, who have had little or no interactions with the US military, could not be done in months.
“Further worsening the situation is an organized propaganda campaign by the very groups we seek to destroy,” he said. “So let me say, definitively, that the United States does not covet a single inch of Pakistani soil; we seek no military bases here; and we have no desire to control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”
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