Washington, June 30 (IANS) Gen. David Petraeus, set to be the top commander in Afghanistan, has said that the US would work with both Pakistan and India, as New Delhi without question has a legitimate interest in the region.
In efforts to bring about reconciliation in Afghanistan, the US was with both Afghanistan and Pakistan ‘and by the way with India as well’, he said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.
‘I think it’s very important that they realise that we are in this with them, with both of them,’ Petraeus said when asked how he would work with Afghanistan as Islamabad wants to utilise reconciliation as the ‘mechanism to influence Afghanistan and avert Indian regional encirclement’.
‘India has a legitimate interest in this region without question as do others if you want to extend it further,’ he told Democratic Senator Kay Hagan.
After the approval of his nomination by the senate panel Tuesday, the full Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on his confirmation to succeed Gen. Stanley McChrystal sacked over a Rolling Stone magazine article disparaging the Obama administration officials.
Asked by 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain if the US was concerned about Pakistan and its spy agency ISI continuing to work with the Taliban, Petraeus said any residual links between ISI and Taliban would not be a surprise.
‘The question is what the character of those links is and what the activities are behind them,’ the key architect of the successful surge strategy in Iraq said.
‘What we have to always figure out with Pakistan is, are they working with the Taliban to support the Taliban or to recruit sources in the Taliban.
‘And that’s the difficulty, frankly, in trying to assess what the ISI is doing in some of their activities in the federally ministered tribal areas in contacts with the Haqqani network or the Afghan Taliban,’ he said.
‘There are no questions about the longstanding links. Let’s remember that we funded the ISI to build these organizations when they were the mujahadeen and helping to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan,’ the officer said.
‘And so certainly, residual links would not be a surprise. The question is what the character of those links is and what the activities are behind them,’ he added.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
