NEW DELHI: Pakistan has been a partner in fighting terrorism with the United States but was evidently not aware of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad where US Navy Seals killed the Al Qaeda leader in May 2011, former US president Barrack Obama has said.

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here on Friday, Mr Obama said Washington does not distinguish between terrorist groups which target India and those that target his country.

Talking to journalist Karan Thapar at the function, Mr Obama pointed out a “consistent problem” that Washington faced in its relationship with Pakistan.

“Pakistan has been in many ways a partner in fighting against certain terrorist outfits,” the ex-president said.

However, he added that “there are some elements that sometimes have not been good partners with us”.

It was a “source of frustration” that connections were made between “explicit terrorist organisations based in Pakistan and elements that are connected to various more official entities inside of Pakistan…But that’s not just true for organisations directed at India, it is also true for organisations, like Haqqani, that [have] killed US soldiers.”

Another question Mr Thapar posed to the former US leader concerned the killing of bin Laden in a secret hideout in Pakistan.

The journalist asked whether Pakistan had been hiding the Al Qaeda founder and was, therefore, complicit.

In response, Mr Obama said that “we had no evidence that Pakistan was aware of his presence — that is something that we looked at.”

Besides, addressing a townhall event of 300 youth leaders, activists and social entrepreneurs organised by the Obama Foundation, the former president said that he had advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi — not for the first time — to fight religious sectarianism dogging India and to embrace the country’s Muslims as equal citizens.

Mr Obama, unveiling his new role as a social reformer, underscored issues of religious tolerance, LGBT community rights and the importance of non-governmental organisations.

At the Hindustan Times conference, Mr Obama said he had brought up concerns about the treatment of religious minorities with Prime Minister Modi during his last visit as US president in January 2015.

“A country shouldn’t be divided on sectarian lines and that is something I have told Prime Minister Modi in person as well as to people in America...People see the differences between each other much too vividly and miss the commonalities.”

While praising Mr Modi for his work on climate change and the Paris accords, Mr Obama credited former prime minister Manmohan Singh for modernising the Indian economy, saying they had also been “also great friends”.

Referring to a “counter-narrative” to tolerance in the US, Europe and India, he said: “For a country like India where there is a Muslim population that is successful, integrated and considers itself as Indian — which is not the case in some other countries — this should be nourished and cultivated.”

The Hindu newspaper said that Mr Obama’s words are significant as they repeat concerns he expressed at a lecture during his 2015 visit, that criticised cow-vigilantism and attacks on churches in India at the time.

Mr Modi, who hosted a lunch for Mr Obama, later tweeted: “It was a pleasure to meet, once again, former President Barack Obama, and learn about the new initiatives being taken forward under his leadership at the Obama Foundation…and his perspectives on further strengthening India-US strategic partnership.”

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2017