July 22, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 21, 1424

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NEW YORK, July 21: US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, said that US believes that Pakistan needs conventional weapons and “we’d like to help them acquire them” calling it a critical partner in the war on terror.

In an interview on Public Broadcast Station (PBS) on Friday following a telecast of a documentary on Junoon’s lead guitarist Salman Ahmed — The Rock Star and the Mullahs, Ms Rocca said: “We don’t believe that this will destabilize the current balance that exists in the subcontinent. We’re very careful in that respect. We watch very carefully.”

Asked about US concerns on return of democracy in Pakistan, Ms Rocca said noted: “We’re going in the right direction in democracy.”

“President Musharraf set up a roadmap. He stuck to the roadmap so far. We’re moving towards democracy. There are obviously voices who are wanting to be heard. And I think that as we move towards a fuller democracy, it’ll be a place where all voices will be heard from all sides of the spectrum. That’s what we hope for,” Ms Rocca added.

When asked about US concerns about Pakistani nuclear programme and fears that it may land in the hands of the fundamentalists, she underscored “I’d say at this point we still believe that the government of Pakistan is in control of its nuclear assets. That it knows how to control it, and that nuclear security is a major component of their policy.”

About Pakistan’s economic potential, Ms Rocca observed Pakistan “is a country that has a lot of potential. There’s a lot of people there, and it’s got the ability to move in the right direction. This is one of the reasons that we’ve put forward the enormous multiyear package that we’ve just presented to Pakistan — which, by the way, is something that is not done with very many countries. It is intended to signal a long-term commitment to the country, and also to help move this vision of Pakistan forward.”

She said that US believes that Pakistan can emerge “as a stable Muslim moderate democracy and this is a vision that Pakistan can achieve with some work and some assistance from the international community.”

On the question about US concerns with the anti-American sentiment in Pakistani parliament following elections, Ms Rocca said: “Well, the anti-American aspect of it is something that we clearly need to work on. I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job of putting out the message of the fact that the United States is tolerant, and in no way anti-Islam. On the contrary. And so we need to do a better job of getting this message heard. It’s a long-term project.”

She said: “We want to move forward on a much broader-based relationship with Pakistan, and with the people of Pakistan. So it’s not just a security relationship. It’s also one where we want to be of assistance in the area of health, in the area of education, in the area of democratization.