LAHORE, Oct 6: Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali, a former foreign minister and sitting MNA from Kasur, thinks that missile attacks by United States (US) drones on Waziristan may continue till presidential elections in America.

However, he hopes the situation will settle down after the election of the new US president.

“A lot of rethinking is going on in Washington. And I think the situation will settle down after the US (presidential) elections. But till Nov 4, I foresee that the US attacks will continue. It is (President) George W. Bush, who is giving his helping hand to John McCain to convince the American people that only Republicans can protect US security,” he said while talking to Dawn here on Monday.

Denying a report published by Wall Street Journal quoting President Asif Ali Zardari, the PPP leader said that missile attacks were not being carried out with the consent of the Pakistani government. No government could let any foreign power violate its sovereignty, he argued. “These attacks are counterproductive as they are creating a great deal of animosity against the US”.

In his opinion, the real problem appeared to be a lack of trust between the intelligence agencies of US and Pakistan. “What needs to be done is to restore that confidence so that Pakistan can take its own actions which may be based on US intelligence”.

Sardar Assef said the crisis of credible intelligence should not be allowed to get out hand by both sides. “I feel if some credible mechanism between the respective intelligence organisations is established, the issue can be addressed suitably”. He said the second problem was the capacity building of the armed forces of Pakistan in dealing with militants on this side of the border. “It seems that neither the intelligence agencies of Pakistan nor the state apparatus nor the armed forces of Pakistan are fully geared to fighting this kind of war. So, a great deal of capacity building, training and hardware would be required to be provided to Pakistan”.

The PPP leader said the present government would not make any compromise on the sovereignty of the country. However, he said, the situation was quite different when the PML-Q was in power. “There was some unwritten understanding to allow the Americans to use Pakistan’s airspace within three kilometres of the border. This has recently been admitted by former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri in a TV interview”.

He said that missile attacks by US drones were violative of the United Nations Charter and were thus condemnable.

He did not give much importance to criticism by a section of the press that President Zardari had failed to meet with Democratic leaders during his recent visit to the US.

“It was not for us to decide who calls on President Zardari. I am absolutely sure that if the Democratic candidates had sought an interview, they would have been granted”. He said vice-presidential candidate Senator Biden had already visited Pakistan and met with Zardari. He told the critics that it was a visit to the United Nations, not the United States. All meetings there were unofficial and held on the sidelines of UN General Assembly session.

When it was pointed out that President Zardari had called militant Islamic groups in occupied Kashmir as terrorists, the former foreign minister said: “As far as we know, we don’t support any kind of terrorism within Pakistan or outside. In 2001, we gave a commitment to India that our territory would not be used for terrorism anywhere in India. So, this is something the Indian government needs to sort out with the people of Kashmir who are now engaged in a mass movement for their independence.”