Afghan allegations against Pakistan are baseless and President Hamid Karzai is blaming Pakistan for his own problems, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri said on Sunday. In an interview to Geo television, Kasuri said Pakistan wanted cordial relations with Afghanistan and a stable government in Kabul. Asked why Pakistan was being blamed for the unrest in Afghanistan, Kasuri said: “We are blamed because we have more than three million Afghan refugees who have sympathies with the Taliban and our Pushtun tribes also sympathise with the anti-Karzai elements.” He said that mutual efforts by Afghanistan and Pakistan, not allegations, were the solution to the problem. He denied Pakistan’s interference in Afghan affairs, but said he could not deny that there were people living along the Afghan border in Pakistan who were sympathetic towards the Taliban. Kasuri dismissed the impression that Pakistan changed its Afghan policy on just one phone call from Washington after 9/11, saying the decision had been taken before the phone call. He said the phone call issue had been “dramatised and romanticised” in Pakistan, adding that the nation, not the leadership, would have paid a heavy price if Pakistan had not taken the right decision after the 9/11 incident.
Talking about his meetings with Israeli officials, Kasuri said Pakistan had secret contacts with Israel at various levels in the past. He said that he met his Israeli counterpart to discuss issues related to defence, but refused to give further details. “Some friendly countries were constantly asking us to enter into the Palestinian problem and play a role, but it does not mean that we have recognised Israel,” Kasuri said. Pakistan neither supports nor recognises Israel and meetings with some diplomats does not mean dialogue, he added.