Hafiz, LeT are Pak liabilities but no way to fix them: For Min
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister has acknowledged that Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, the Haqqanis and the LeT are “liabilities” for his country but it does not have the required “assets” to get rid of them.
Khawaja Asif said the US, which is putting pressure on Pakistan to tackle terrorist groups operating from its soil, once used to treat them as “darlings” just 20 to 30 years back, according to a PTI report.
US President Donald Trump had last month criticised Pakistan for its support to terror groups, saying it receives billions in US aid but continues to harbour militants.
“Don't blame us for the Haqqanis (the Haqqani terror network) and don’t blame us for the Hafiz Saeeds (chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa terror group),” Khawaja Asif said at the Asia Society forum on Tuesday.
“These were the people who were your darlings just 20 to 30 years back. They were being dined and wined in the White House and now you say ‘go to hell Pakistanis because you are nurturing these people’,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
It is very easy to say Pakistan is floating the Haqqanis and Hafiz Saeed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. They are liabilities, Asif said.
“I accept that they are liabilities, but give us time to get rid of them because we don’t have the assets to match these liabilities & you are increasing them (our liabilities) further,” the minister said.
Hafiz Saeed is accused by India of masterminding the Mumbai carnage of November 2008 that left 166 Indians and foreigners dead. New Delhi has been repeatedly asking Islamabad to prosecute him for his crimes.
Asif said Pakistan was ready to work with the US for effective management of the Afghan border to stop terrorist infiltration and to facilitate a peace settlement in Afghanistan. He underlined that there was no military solution to the dragging conflict in Afghanistan.
"Sca-pegoating Pakistan for all the Afghan ills is neither fair nor accurate... This will only help forces that we are trying to fight collectively."
Pakistan, he said, had done all it could to facilitate a political settlement in Afghani-stan, making sure that Pakistani soil was not used against any country. "We are mindful of the strong desire in the US to bring the 'long war' in Afghanistan to an end. We support this objective wholeheartedly and are ready to help in any way we could to achieve peace and stability in Afghanistan."
He made it clear that there were clear limits to what Pakistan could do vis-a-vis Afghanistan.