SYDNEY, May 13: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri Friday said that while his country had done much to smash the Al Qaeda network and destroy other militant groups, an end to the war against terror was not in sight. “For Pakistan, the first and foremost challenge is the threat of terrorism and its role as a frontline state in the war against terrorism,” the minister said during a speech to a foreign policy think-tank in Sydney.
“Nobody knows where the war against terrorism will take us and therefore how it will end.” While Pakistani authorities had apprehended and deported almost 600 suspected Al Qaeda operatives and affiliates, the Western world also needed to look to trouble spots around the world to kill breeding grounds for terror and counter sentiment that Muslims received a raw deal in the current world order.
“We know very well that there is the feeling in the Islamic world that there is selectivity in the application of UN Security Council resolutions,” he said. Mr Kasuri said Australia had faced indignation from the Muslim world when it led an intervention force in 1999 into East Timor, which had previously been controlled by Indonesia.
“Look at Indonesia, East Timor... I’m not going into the merits of it, but all over the Islamic world they said ‘Oh here’s a Christian minority, they want their rights, they are being given (them) by the UN’.”
Kasuri reiterated the stance of President Pervez Musharraf, who has called on Muslim countries to conduct reforms to reduce the threat of terror and on the West to help resolve disputes justly so that terrorists are denied a breeding ground.
Mr Kasuri, the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit since 1959, said ties between the two nations were strong and Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Prime Minister John Howard would visit his country this year.
Mr Downer on Thursday announced the two nations would sign an agreement to improve counter-terrorist cooperation when President Pervez Musharraf visits next month.—AFP
