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| December 4, 2001 | Tuesday | Ramazan 18, 1422 |
Islamabad cooperating with US: envoy
PESHAWAR, Dec 3: Islamabad is cooperating with the United States on preventing ‘undesirables’ from crossing over to its side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with the two countries working jointly to get information from those arrested when sneaking into Pakistan recently.
“I am quite confident that the government of Pakistan is committed absolutely to preventing any of al-Qaeda or senior Taliban (member from escaping),” US ambassador to Islamabad Windey Chamberlin said here on Monday.
During her day-long visit to Peshawar on Monday, the US ambassador held meetings with the NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, Corps Commander of the 11-corps Lt-Gen Ali Mohammed Jan Orakzai.
She was also briefed about the refugees’ affairs in the NWFP by the Commissioner Afghan Refugees, NWFP, Mr Mohammed Naeem Khan.
Without disclosing the number of ‘undesirables’ intercepted after they entered Pakistan, she said “we are working jointly to get information (from them).”
Pakistani authorities are holding three of the Taliban’s foreign troops who were arrested by the border security forces as they tried to sneak into this side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
“I can’t give you the numbers,” she said, when asked how many al-Qaeda members or Taliban leaders had been arrested upon their arrival in Pakistan.
“It is a long, 1,500-mile border; it is porous and rugged and it would be hard to make any hard and fast statements,” she said concerning the number of al-Qaeda members and Taliban leaders who have crossed over to Pakistan.
About her meeting with the provincial authorities and corps commander, Windey Chamberlin told Dawn that issues related to Pakistan’s border security and refugees came under discussion.
In this connection, she said, American CIA’s Director George Tenet paid a visit to Pakistan and held talks on mutual cooperation.
“George Tenet was here (in Peshawar) on Friday, (and) left on Saturday,” said Chamberlin, according to whom apart from the mutual cooperation, Osama bin Laden also figured prominently during his meetings with the Pakistani authorities, including the military and intelligence services.
She described George Tenet’s visit to Pakistan as “a very good one”.
With Corps Commander Lt-Gen Ali Mohammed Jan Orakzai, Chamberlin said issues relating to Pakistan border security came under discussion, particularly the $73m assistance the US was extending to Islamabad for enhancing its security on the country’s border with Afghanistan.
“Congress has appropriated the money. We are actively putting it together as we speak,” she told this correspondent.
The assistance, she said, was meant to help Pakistan strengthen its ability to protect the border with Afghanistan in the long term.
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