WASHINGTON: On a visit to Washington, Musharraf described relations between the United States and Pakistan as “terrible” but defended the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency that American officials have accused of supporting extremists.
Musharraf, who has lived in exile since stepping down in 2008 but hopes to launch a political comeback next year, insisted that his country's historic rival India was working to turn Afghanistan against Pakistan.
“Since our independence, Afghanistan always has been anti-Pakistan because the Soviet Union and India have very good relations in Afghanistan,” Musharraf said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“We must not allow this to continue,” he said. “We must not begrudge if Pakistan orders ISI to take counter-measures to protect its own interests.”
Musharraf said Afghanistan could plunge into conflict along ethnic lines after 2014, when the United States plans to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan, ending more than a decade of war.
“Are you leaving a stable Afghanistan or an unstable Afghanistan? Because based on that, I in Pakistan will have to take my own counter-measures,”Musharraf said.
The “adverse impact will be on Pakistan, so any leader in Pakistan must think of securing Pakistan's interests,” he added.
Musharraf criticized Mullen's comments but said that Pakistan needed to do a better job explaining its position.
“They must prove to the world and to the United States: Is there a problem? Do they have a different strategy as far as Sirajuddin Haqqani is concerned? Is there a problem that the army is overstretched?” he asked.
In an apparent bid to ease concerns in Islamabad, Karzai recently said that Afghans would side with Pakistan in the event of war with the United States, although he later said that his remarks were misinterpreted.
Musharraf said it marked the first time Karzai has made a “pro-Pakistan statement,” but called his comments “preposterous.”
