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| India-Pakistan |
| North Waziristan next priority: FM |
| 2010-06-10 |
| Pakistan's next priority in the fight against the Taliban is North Waziristan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Wednesday. In an interview at the end of the third summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Qureshi said the army was moving toward an offensive in North Waziristan in a 'calculated fashion' after an earlier successful operation in South Waziristan. "Our next priority is going to be North Waziristan, but we have to time our operations in line with our resources. At the moment we are consolidating our position in South Waziristan," he said. Referring to the recent terrorism incidents in Punjab, the minister said the provincial government is coming out of denial about the threat from militants. Both from within and outside the country, the PML-N government in Punjab has come under increasing fire for not doing enough to deal with militants that are believed to be becoming stronger in southern parts of the province. "I think they are coming out of the denial that they were living in," the foreign minister said. Asked when the government will launch a crackdown in Punjab, Qureshi said some lower level militants had been picked up and some eliminated. Militant leaders have fled Af-Pak: Qureshi said Pakistan's military successes in the tribal belt and areas like Swat and Malakand had forced some militant leaders to flee outside the Pakistan-Afghanistan theatre, and move to other countries with a known al Qaeda presence. "Our information is that they have gone into areas like Somalia, Yemen and other destinations," he said "The tribal belt is no longer the safe haven that it used to be," he added. Referring to Pak-Afghan ties, Qureshi said relations had improved markedly in the two years since a democratic government took power in Pakistan. Asked whether India's presence in Afghanistan was still worrying Pakistan, Qureshi said the security challenges facing Afghanistan could be helped more by Pakistan than India. "So I think that an exaggerated (Indian) presence would not be in order," he said. Referring to the dialogue process between India and Pakistan, the foreign minister said that both sides had to spend time to bridge the trust gap and think of confidence building measures that will restore the shaken confidence between them. India's Interior Minister P Chidambaram is due to hold bilateral talks with his Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of a regional ministerial meeting in Islamabad on June 26. reuters |
| Posted by:Fred |