Washington, DC:
India, Britain and Afghanistan have come down hard on Pakistan over its role in destabilization of the Afghanistan government, but Pakistan remains defiant.
While the WikiLeaks documents show how the ISI is teaming with the Taliban to destroy the Indians and Indian interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan says that India needs to be more transparent in its dealings.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, says India will not be allowed to use Afghanistan as a staging ground to militarily threaten Pakistan.
NDTV: Since a lot of what you do here in Washington as Pakistan's ambassador is impacted by the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan dynamic, what role do you think India can legitimately play in Afghanistan without causing Pakistan to feel buffeted in?
Answer: I think that the best course for India in Afghanistan is to make sure that whatever they do there does not create misgivings in Pakistan, a little more transparency, a little more open discussion as neighbours...that this is what we are about to do. It's a part of the confidence building that we need to do to overcome the misgivings of the past. In Afghanistan, as long as there is no significant military intelligence activity that Pakistan finds threatening, India of course will remain a country with which the Afghans will do business, and similarly, at some point in future, Pakistan itself looks forward to a normal trade relationship with India, but until we get there, we have to have a more reassuring posture towards one another.
NDTV: Is it fair to say that Pakistan wants and demands primacy in Afghanistan once the US engagement begins to scale down?
Answer: Pakistan does not seek control over or primacy in Afghanistan. We want to be a friend to Afghanistan and a neighbor. We recognize Afghan sovereignty; we want Afghanistan's internal politics to remain Afghanistan's internal matter. At the same time, we are concerned like any other country would be about not letting Afghanistan be used as a military or intelligence staging ground that would interrupt our own security. Our concerns are not very unsimilar to what would have been American concerns...if for example the Soviet Union had started creating a military or intelligence base in Mexico or in Canada during the cold war. So I think that the onus of creating trust lies on both sides, and in the case of Afghanistan, our Indian neighbours can find a way of reassuring Pakistan so that this does not become another sort of sore point between the two countries.