|
|
|
| 23 May 2004 | Sunday | 03 Rabi-us-Saani 1425 |
Conventional arms sought from US: Kasuri deplores troop incursions
WASHINGTON, May 22: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, who concluded his three-day visit to Washington on Saturday, has urged the United States to help boost Pakistan's conventional defence capabilities.
Mr Kasuri said he has delivered "a shopping list" for military hardware to US officials that he brought from Islamabad.
"We have given them a shopping list, some of this I brought from Islamabad and some was already there," said Mr Kasuri while briefing Pakistani journalists on his visit.
"We told them also to look at our defence requirements. We told them that the people of Pakistan expect the United States to help boost our defence capabilities," he said.
Mr Kasuri said that since "Pakistan cannot even think of" using nuclear weapons, it needs to build up its conventional defence and needs America's help for this purpose.
Obviously, for a visitor with a shopping list, it was embarrassing for Mr Kasuri to respond to the popular demand for strongly protesting against Thursday's US incursion into North Waziristan.
Asked if he had raised this issue with US officials and lawmakers he met, Mr Kasuri said: "I raised it on the US media and it cannot go unnoticed by their senior officials and lawmakers."
As Mr Kasuri said the incursion did not go unnoticed by US officials. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters in Washington on Friday evening that the incursion, the second in two weeks, was nothing more than an unfortunate accident."
"I'm sure it was an accident and we'll take precautions to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.
The incident occurred on Thursday in North Waziristan when US troops crossed into Pakistan during a search operation in a village that straddles the Afghan border.
Terming the intrusion as "totally unacceptable," Mr Kasuri said: "This, perhaps, was the decision of a local commander keen to show off his performance. I am sure it does not reflect the policies of President Bush, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defence or senior US generals."
"It was not even hot-pursuit. The laws of hot-pursuits are clear and well defined. This does not qualify as a hot-pursuit," said Mr Kasuri while asking, "what purpose did this incursion?"
The foreign minister urged the US government to make sure that such incidents do not happen in the future because they hurt bilateral relations.
Mr Kasuri, who was in an unusually critical mood throughout his three-day visit to Washington, reacted sharply when asked earlier at a local think-tank if the previous elections in Pakistan were fair and free.
His insinuation that the election that brought President Bush to power was not very fair either, made many in the audience feel uncomfortable. Some of them later said that Pakistani diplomats will have a tough time explaining their foreign minister's remarks to the US State Department.
Mr Kasuri also said that the Pakistani people ask their government also to "photograph and fingerprint American centers" when they visit Pakistan but "we tell them it is an unequal world."
There were many US officials, lawmakers and scholars in the audience when Mr Kasuri made these remarks at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thin-tank that has a major influence on the policy makers in the Bush administration.
But later Mr Kasuri made certain other remarks that may have had a positive impact on the audience, particularly when he declared that Pakistan was considering sending troops to Iraq under the UN umbrella.
Asked if Pakistan would recognize the new interim government in Iraq that Washington wants to instal on July 1, Mr Kasuri said: "That will not be a problem but there must be something on the ground, some UN involvement."
|
|
|
|