Islamabad : Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has
publicly offered for the first time to support US drone attacks inside
his country, provided that Islamabad is in on the decision making.
In an interview with TIME, Gilani said that the drone war weakens his
efforts to rally public support for the fight against extremism.
“No one can win a war without the support of the public,” he said,
adding, “I say that this is my war, but when drones strike, the people
ask, ‘Whose war is this, then?’ ”
Gilani warned that his government was accountable to an electorate that is increasingly hostile to the United States.
“I am not an army dictator; I’m a public figure,” he said. “If public
opinion is against you [referring to his U.S. allies], then I cannot
resist it to stand with you. I have to go with public opinion.”
Still, Gilani said for the first time, publicly, that he was open to
renegotiating the terms of the Central Intelligence Agency ‘s program.
“A drone strategy can be worked out,” he said. “If drone strikes are
effective, then we should evolve a common strategy to win over public
opinion. Our position is that the technology should be transferred to
us.”
Still, he added, he would countenance a policy in which the CIA would
continue to operate the drones “where they are used under our
supervision.”
This statement marks a departure from Pakistan’s frequent public
denunciations of drone strikes as intolerable violations of
sovereignty. (ANI)
