KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)’s leader of the
opposition in National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan assured the US
in 2008 that he and his party were pro-American, according to a US
embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.
“Saying that his wife and
children are in fact Americans, Nisar did admit that he went to the US
Embassy in London to renew his daughter’s passport because he wanted to
avoid being seen at the US Embassy in Islamabad.” More telling,
however, is Khan’s stance on US military action within Pakistan, and
how the PML-N would act to remain “publicly credible”.
Nisar
reportedly avoided saying that the PML-N opposed either air attacks or
US ground action, contrary to its reaction over the May 2011 raid in
Abbottabad by a US Navy SEALs team which killed al Qaeda leader Osama
bin Laden. “What he did say was that the PML-N would have to criticise
the Government of Pakistan for allowing US action. Otherwise, said
Nisar, the party would have no credibility with the people.”
Nisar
said that US policy needed to be more transparent as “confusion bred
unhelpful conspiracy theories”. He also told US diplomats that former
president Pervez Musharraf was seen as too pro-US and so was “tainted
in Pakistani eyes”. The release of the US embassy and consulate cables
in Pakistan has also highlighted how various politicians have lobbied
American diplomats for support. From Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader
of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) to former
foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to the late former Prime
Minister, Benazir Bhutto, every major politician in Pakistan has looked
to the diplomats Online
