Revisiting Pak-US ties: Quit war on terror but not ties with US, says experts

Speakers at a conference were unanimous in exhorting Pakistan to keep engaged and maintain balanced relations with the United States while broadening its strategic options in the external field, said a press release.

Pakistan must build a unified vision on foreign policy and should not allow its relations with the US to be undermined despite the latters dichotomous approach towards it, they said.

A diverse panel of scholars and defence analysts participated in the conference on Revisiting Pakistan-US Relations organised by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) on its premises in Islamabad on Thursday.

Chaired by Lt-Gen (retd) Asad Durrani, the conference heard the views of Prof Tahir Amin, chairman, National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS) Quaid-i-Azam University, Air Vice-Marshal (retd) Shahzad Chaudhry and former Ambassador Muhammad Saeed Khalid.

Prof Amin endorsed the resolution of the recent All Parties Conference (APC) on countering terrorism and urged the government to quit the war on terror as soon as possible. He said that the US had allocated a huge budget to keep surveillance on Pakistans nuclear programme. The professor noted the dichotomy in US policy in asking Pakistan to fight the militants in its tribal areas while itself pulling out of Afghanistan. The nature of US relations with Pakistan is transactional focused on counter-terrorism and non-proliferation. He said the US war on terror had lost its legitimacy and Pakistan must delink itself from it irrespective of the consequences. Security analyst Shahzad Chaudhry discussed the confusion surrounding the current controversy on drone attacks and said it was due to lack of proper narrative on the problem. He said in this era of cyber technology the nature of war would change with new developments and the question of national sovereignty would have to constantly adjust to these developments. Ambassador (retd) Saeed Khalid criticized the media for giving disproportionate coverage to the activities of the terrorist groups and said it was bolstering their viewpoint. Winding up the discussion Gen Durrani said that Pak-US relations had always been tactical and issue based. He stressed the point that Pakistan must keep an eye on its weaknesses.