LONDON (Agencies) - Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani says he has received US assurances there will be no repeat of the unilateral raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.
Gilani’s remarks, in an interview with the Guardian, contradict assertions by the US president, Barack Obama, and other American officials that US forces would take similar action against other Al-Qaeda leaders if necessary.
Gilani was speaking in London at a time when Pakistani relations with the West, particularly the US, are at a low in the wake of the raid on bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on 2 May.
“Since we were sharing information with US and there was a tremendous relationship with the CIA and ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], therefore we could have done a joint operation in Abbottabad, but it didn’t happen. Therefore, we had a lot of reservations,” Gilani said.
He added: “They have assured us in future there will be no unilateral actions in Pakistan, and there would be co-operation between both agencies.”
The prime minister said he had received the assurance personally from the US Secretary Of State, Hillary Clinton. In her public statements, however, Clinton has declared the US would strike unilaterally against other top militants if others did not.
She said in May: “We’ve made it clear to people around the world that if we locate someone who has been part of the Al-Qaeda leadership, then you get him or we will get him.”
Speaking to the BBC just before his visit to Britain the same month, Obama was equally blunt on the issue. He said: “We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is planning to kill our people or our allies’ people – we can’t allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action.”
On Thursday, however, Gilani said any repeat of the Abbottabad raid would be “totally unacceptable”.
“Public opinion would further aggravate against the United States and you cannot fight a war without the support of the masses. You need the masses to support military actions against militants,” he said.
He said another raid would damage “not only our relationship, but also our common objective, to fight against militants. We are fighting a war and if we fail that means that it’s not good for the world. We can’t afford losing.”
After the raid against bin Laden, the Pakistani government said it had stopped the US launching drones from its territory. Nevertheless, drone strikes on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan have continued.
“We don’t allow our bases to be used. They have other bases they use,” Gilani said. Asked where those bases were, he replied: “I don’t know. You ask the Americans. This is a question to put to them.”
The prime minister added: “Drone attacks are against our strategy too, because we have been isolating the militants from the local population and when there are drone attacks they get united again.”
Gilani, in an interview with Reuters on Thursday, said Pakistan and Afghanistan must redouble efforts to end fighting along their border to prevent this jeopardising an improvement in relations.
Gilani said he hoped India could “play a good role” in Afghanistan, as warming ties between Islamabad and New Delhi reduce the deep mistrust which has seen the two countries battling for influence there.
“It is in the interest of Pakistan for a stable, peaceful, independent, sovereign Afghanistan,” Gilani said. “We are part of the solution and we are not part of the problem.”
He said both Afghanistan and Pakistan - which have had difficult relations in the past over Pakistan’s alleged support for the Taliban - had realised they needed to unite to fight their “common enemy” in militants.
But a flare-up in fighting along the border has put that understanding at risk.
Pakistan has attributed the clashes to incursions by militants which it had previously chased out of its tribal areas and who then took refuge in eastern Afghanistan.
Afghanistan says at least 42 civilians have been killed by Pakistan Army shelling, though President Hamid Karzai has over-ruled senior ministers who wanted to return fire.
Pakistan has denied large-scale shelling, saying only that a few accidental rounds may have crossed the border when it pursued militants who had attacked its security forces.
Gilani said both he and Karzai were under “tremendous pressure” over the border incursions.
“Therefore I am regularly in touch with President Karzai so that there should be no misunderstanding, but we should avoid all these incursions because it can create problems.”
The border fighting, often in areas where the United States had thinned out its troops in order to focus on population centres in southern Afghanistan, has alarmed US analysts.
“If this becomes routine - if Afghanistan starts responding in kind to Pakistani attacks on its territory, then we could very easily see a full-scale war,” US Afghan expert Joshua Foust wrote on his blog, Registan.net.
Gilani, however, said Pakistan was committed to help bring stability in Afghanistan including through reconciliation with Taliban insurgents.
“I am in favour of political reconciliation which should be Afghan-owned and Afghan-led. Therefore we are ready to support any reconciliation process which is initiated by Afghanistan.”
But he said the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan must all work together - a prospect which diplomats say has become harder because of strained ties between Washington and Islamabad following the May 2 raid.
“They should be on the same page because any political settlement we want to be doubly sure that in future that would not affect Pakistan’s stability, therefore, whatever the roadmap be, it should be shared with us.”
With the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan due to meet in New Delhi on July 27, Gilani said that, “we really want to make it meaningful and we really want that there should be good results and we want excellent relations with our neighbour”.
“We decided to discuss all irritants and all core issues so that we should move forward,” Gilani said, when asked about what he expected to come out of the foreign ministers’ talks.
Though Afghanistan is not officially covered by that peace process, an improvement in relations would also make it easier for them to find common ground there.
The alternative could see Pakistan and India backing rival factions if civil war intensifies in Afghanistan as the United States gradually pulls out combat troops.
“We both have good relations with Afghanistan - India and Pakistan,” Gilani said. And while Pakistan had an important role to play in Afghan stability, “I do hope that India can also play a good role.”
He said Pakistan was willing to work with the United States to track down militant leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded bin Laden as head of Al-Qaeda.
But he said this did not mean Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) men operating alongside officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency - as had happened in the past.
“Not on the ground. There can be some mechanism because we already have some mechanism of intelligence-sharing and joint operations. Therefore, whatever in-built mechanism, that can be worked on.”
“Previously the CIA and the ISI, they have been cooperating for many years ... Even for the Abbottabad incident, some of the initial information was passed on by the ISI,” Gilani said.
Gilani said Pakistan considered its relations with the United States as ‘extremely important’ and stressed that victories in fight against terrorism must be credited to Pakistan.
“As we [Pakistan and US] are working together in fighting militancy, victories should be shared along with losses,” Gilani said at a press conference here at the conclusion of his four-day visit.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that Pakistan and the United States were undergoing a strained period after the unilateral action by the US in Abbottabad.
Gilani said Pakistan would not allow any restrictions forced on it from outside and added that the country’s sovereign parliament had already adopted a resolution opposing such step.
When asked about the need for a more independent foreign policy, he said the parliament had all the rights to review national strategies and invited the members to work on it, if required.
On relations with India, the Prime Minister said the two countries had come on the table to discuss all the issues, including the Kashmir dispute.
He said Pakistan and India had realised that their relations should not become hostage to the Mumbai incident and added that the foreign ministers would be meeting on July 27 to discuss a range of issues.
“If the two countries do not talk, the beneficiaries will be the militants,” he said.
When asked to comment on the arrest of Kashmiri leader Ghulam Nabi Fai in the United States, Gilani clarified that he [Fai] belonged to the Occupied Kashmir and his detention had nothing to do with Pakistan’s clear-cut policy on Kashmir.
The prime minister also spoke about the current political situation in Pakistan and said that political leaders in the country had always been a soft target to be accused of corruption in an attempt to derail the democracy.
He regretted that contrary to this, military dictators had never been charged with corruption despite their policies that led to this menace.
Gilani said political leaders had paid a huge price for democracy, however, come what may, he would keep on defending democracy.
When asked how long would be the patch-up between the government and the MQM, Gilani said he hoped for the better as both were allies for the last three years and all amendments in the Constitution had been backed by MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement).
He welcomed the review of decision by MQM chief Altaf Hussain and said it was necessary for country’s stability and future. On Seraiki province, the prime minister said it was a long-standing demand of the people of area for their rights and he had full respect for the public opinion.
He said the government was striving to meet the demands of energy crisis. As regards the new prime minister in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, he said it would be decided in view of the party majority after holding of election on reserved seats.
On elevation of Hina Rabbani Khar as Foreign Minister, the prime minister said she had the capability of handling the important assignments.
Gilani said it was not possible for him to evade his official responsibilities even on a trip that was purely private, in terms of both need and cost.
On a five-day trip to UK the Prime Minister while talking to Online exclusively the other day said he remains the Premier of his country even on a private visit to a foreign country. “And it becomes more demanding when it comes to the UK,” he added.
Reacting to certain media reports that had alleged prime minister of spending public money on a private trip, he said, he had come to Benazir Bhutto International Airport from Prime Minister House without any protocol to depart Islamabad on a private tour. “I waited for a couple of hours chatting with my immediate staff since there was a disturbance in the flight schedule when I was leaving the country,” the prime minister mentioned. “We took a routine commercial flight and boarded along other passengers. My family and I paid for it accordingly,” he added.
Earlier while sharing with Online his engagements in official capacity the Prime Minister said he had a couple of promising meetings during his visit to the UK.
Besides meeting Deputy Prime Minister of the UK Nick Clegg, Prime Minister Gilani also held detailed discussions with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the Pakistan-born minister without portfolio, a prominent voice advocating Pakistan’s case in the British society.
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