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Thursday, Jun 04, 2009
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It has disturbed us all: Holbrooke

Nirupama Subramanian

Richard Holbrooke.

ISLAMABAD: U.S. special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, who arrived here on Wednesday, was quoted by Geo television as saying the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed “has disturbed us all.”

Later, at a joint press conference with President Asif Ali Zardari, Mr. Holbrooke offered only an oblique comment on Mr. Saeed’s release by the Lahore High Court on Tuesday.

“We are also concerned about anything that encourages the militants,” he said.

Mr. Saeed, whose group is known to be a front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks, was put under house arrest in December 2008 following the U.N. Security Council tag against him and his group as “terrorist.”

The U.S. had been following the case closely, Mr. Holbrooke said.

Private dialogue

“We’ve had a private dialogue on it. We respect that Pakistan has a government of law, and has cooperated [in the Mumbai terror attacks case] in accordance with its own laws,” he said, describing it as a “Pakistan government issue.”

Declining to say anything more, or comment on the implications of Mr. Saeed’s release for relations between India and Pakistan, the special envoy emphasised his visit was “really focussed on the fact that [the Pakistan government] has taken strong and, we hope, decisive action against the threat [from the Taliban].”

It was a “humanitarian” mission to assess the needs and conditions of 2.5 million people displaced by the anti-Taliban operations by the Pakistan military in Swat, the special envoy said.

The Obama administration, Mr. Holbrooke disclosed, had asked the U.S. Congress to approve $200 million in humanitarian assistance in addition to the $110 million it had already given to Pakistan towards a fund for the internally displaced.

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