Washington, Oct 4 (IANS) Pakistan has been helping the US gather intelligence about who is plotting against various European cities with its spy agency ISI sharing information with the CIA, according to the Pakistani envoy.
There appear to be some Germans and a couple of British people who are operating out of the northern mountainous region of Pakistan and plotting these schemes against various European cities, Pakistan’s ambassador to US, Hussein Haqqani told CNN Sunday.
Asked if Pakistan was working actively with the US and European officials, he said: ‘Absolutely. Absolutely.’
‘The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) shared intelligence to this effect with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI,’ Haqqani said.
‘Even though the ISI is maligned a lot in the media, the fact remains that it is one of the closest collaborators, partners, and allies of US intelligence,’ he said.
‘And in this particular instance, the United States is very happy, I can say this on your show, that American officials have told us that the quality of cooperation they have received from the ISI is really 100 percent.’
‘Look, what we have in Pakistan is a complex political reality.And the local situation in Pakistan is that the United States is not very popular amongst our public,’ Haqqani said when asked about the difference in Islamabad’s public posture and its help to US.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ‘when she went there, twice, she tried to reach out to the Pakistani people,’ and US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke ‘always reaches out to the Pakistani people,’ he said.
US National Security Advisor General James Jones and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen have also ‘worked very hard to cultivate Pakistani leaders,’ Haqqani said.
‘But the fact remains that an elected democratic government in Pakistan is limited by public opinion to the extent of what it can do.’
‘What is going on right now is that Pakistan is saying, we will take care of our terrorists on the Pakistani side of the border, but we will do it on our time line,’ Haqqani said. ‘We can’t always follow a time line that our allies set for us, because we are allies, not a satellite.’
