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Pakistan assesses Boucher visit

ISLAMABAD: Friend or foe? This is the question Pakistan is asking visiting United States Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher who met President Pervez Musharraf and Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on Wednesday.

Gen. Musharraf is said to have conveyed Pakistan’s unhappiness at the spate of statements by Bush Administration officials and politicians threatening unilateral military strikes in the north-west frontier regions, and a legislation that makes U.S. financial aid to Pakistan conditional.

Gen. Musharraf is said to have told the U.S. official who deals with South and Central Asian affairs that the statements were counter-productive to the close cooperation between the two countries.

Earlier, Mr. Boucher heard the same from Mr. Kasuri.

Pakistan’s coming presidential and parliamentary elections are also reported to have come up for discussion at both meetings.

Mr. Boucher’s fourth visit to Pakistan this year comes in the midst of tremendous political uncertainty for Gen. Musharraf. The sources said in all his meetings, including the one with Gen. Musharraf, Mr. Boucher emphasised that the U.S. was looking forward to a fair and transparent election process and the transition to democracy in Pakistan.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Mr. Kasuri told the U.S. official that the Implementation of 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act 2007 “reminded of the Pressler Amendment, which had impacted negatively on the bilateral relations” and the threats of military action were “counter-productive” to the spirit of the Pakistan-U.S. strategic relationship.

Both welcomed the Pakistan-Afghanistan peace jirga as a positive development and expressed the hope that the follow-up mechanism it established would help move the process forward.

Mr. Kasuri also raised the issue of his country’s energy needs, and the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement was discussed at the meeting.

There is resentment in Pakistan that the U.S. did not give it a similar deal, which, according to Islamabad, would have worked much better in the interests of regional peace and stability.

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