Pakistan questions utility of Chicago moot

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday questioned the outcome of the forthcoming Nato summit in Chicago on Afghanistan, proposed to be held on May 20-21, in a situation when Afghanistanís neighbours were not included.

 

Other voices reaching The News say that Pakistan should not be seen grovelling for an invite because the fact that its importance of being a key player in the region will not diminish, if it does not attend the summit.

 

On Friday NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to a question, said in Brussels that Pakistan had not been invited to the Nato Summit in Chicago. Rasmussen also pitched for the immediate re-opening of the Ground Lines of Communication (GLOC) into Afghanistan, hinting that this was the reason no invitation had landed at the Presidency in Islamabad.

 

In the Presidency itself, the mood was cynical and questioning as when approached, spokesman for the president, Senator Farhatullah Babar told The News, ìIf the purpose of Nato moot is to recommend solution to Afghan problem, it is anybodyís guess what recommendations will be made by a conference that does not include its neighbours and what will be the value of those recommendations."

 

The United States has also been adamant in bilateral deliberations that there should be some progress on GLOC before Pakistan could get a seat at the table in Chicago.

 

Rawalpindi stubbornly refuses to do so demanding that first the US should apologise for the killings of its soldiers by US aircraft on Salala check post last November. It is another matter when an apology was about to be given by the US, but it was held back till the parliamentary process to set guidelines for future bilateral relations was finalised. As a consequence of this decision pressure is being applied by the US on the democratic government and chances of President Asif Ali Zardari attending the Chicago summit are up in the air.

 

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has been silent on the fact that there is a US team in Pakistan that is negotiating the opening of GLOC.

 

The team came with Ambassador Marc Grossman a few weeks ago. What was in the public domain was that Pakistan Ambassador Sherry Rehman and US Ambassador Cameron Munter were burning the midnight oil to come to an understanding on the main sticking points between the two governments.

 

However, spokesperson at the State Department when asked about the latest on these bilateral talks told the media, ìWhen Ambassador Grossman was in Pakistan — what was it, some 10 days ago — he had substantive conversations himself with regard to the opening of the land routes. And then he brought with him an expert team to work with the Pakistani expert team. That team is still in Pakistan. They're continuing to work together on this issue."

 

Meanwhile, another question regarding bilateral relations that is being asked is, whether the US is shying away from designating the Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation, because it feels that there are chances that the Afghan representatives of this group could come face to face with the US when the reconciliation process takes off? Some individuals in this group have been designated by Washington but not the entire group itself.

 

The US administration has received a letter from Congress seeking a designation which is being reviewed.

 

To a question whether Washington was contemplating such a move to designate the Haqqani network, the spokesperson responded, "This led one to question whether, when you go from individual designations to a group designation, one of the factors to be considered and one of the factors we are considering is: Would this increase the effectiveness? Will it be additive — or does it just make one feel good and not necessarily add to our ability to control? So I'm not going to prejudge where weíre going to go on the Haqqani network, just to say that weíre taking time because there are a variety of factors here.

 

But make no mistake; a huge number of the kingpins have already been designated, not only by us, but also by the UN."