WASHINGTON: Asking the US to scale down rhetoric and resume serious
dialogue, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the
confrontation strategy was damaging the relationship between Pakistan
and the United States and compromising common goals in defeating
terrorism, extremism and fanaticism.
“Democracy always favors
dialogue over confrontation. So, too, in Pakistan, where the terrorists
who threaten both our country and the United States have gained the
most from the recent verbal assaults America have made against
Pakistan.
It is time for the rhetoric to stop and start serious
dialogue between allies, the President wrote in an article published in
Washington Post.
President said our motives are simple to
provide employment to youth, to turn this demographic challenge into a
dividend for democracy and pluralism, where the embrace of tolerance
elbows out the lure of extremism, where jobs turn desolation into
opportunity and empowerment, where plowshares take the place of guns,
where women and minorities have a meaningful place in society.
“None
of this vision for a new Pakistan is premised on the politics of
victimisation. It pivots on a worldview where we fight the war against
extremism and terrorism as our battle, at every precinct and until the
last person, even though we lack the resources to match our
commitment”, he wrote
Reiterating that Pakistan wants trade not
aid President said when we commit to a partnership against terrorism,
we do it in the hope that our joint goals will be addressed. When we
add our shoulder to the battle, we look for outcomes that leave us
stronger.
He said it is shocking to know that when Pakistan is
pounded by the ravages of globally driven climate change, in which
millions of our citizens have become homeless, we find that, instead of
a dialogue with our closest strategic ally, we are spoken to instead of
being heard.
“We are being battered by nature and by our
friends. This has shocked a nation that is bearing the brunt of the
terrorist whirlwind in the region. And why?”
After the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001, the world’s most powerful democracy compromised its
fundamental values to accommodate a dictator in Pakistan. Since then we
have lost 30,000 innocent civilians and 5,000 military and police
officers to the militant mind-set that the U.S. government is now
charging that we support, the president wrote.
We have suffered
more than 300 suicide bomb attacks by the forces that allegedly find
sanctuary within our borders. We have hemorrhaged approximately $100
billion directly in the war effort and tens of billions more in lost
foreign investment. The war is being fought in Afghanistan and in
Pakistan, yet Washington has invested almost nothing on our side of the
border and hundreds of billions of dollars on the other side, he wrote.
We struggle to hold the line against the tidal wave of extremism
that surges into Pakistan each day from internationally controlled
areas of Afghanistan. While we are accused of harboring extremism, the
United States is engaged in outreach and negotiations with the very
same groups, the President wrote.
He wrote the international
community abandoned Central and South Asia a generation ago, triggering
the catastrophe that we now find ourselves in. Whoever comes or goes,
it is our coming generation that will face the firestorm. We have to
live in the neighborhood. So why is it unreasonable for us to be
concerned about the immediate and long-term situation of our Western
border? History will not forgive us if we don’t take responsibility.
The
President wrote that the recent accusations against us have been a
serious setback to the war effort and our joint strategic interests. It
is not as if Pakistanis will stop reclaiming our terrain, inch by inch,
from the extremists, even without the United States. We are a tenacious
people. We will not allow religion to become the trigger for terrorism
or persecution.
Emphasizing that when an ally is informed instead of consulted, we both suffer.
“The
sooner we stop shooting verbal arrows at each other and coordinate our
resources against the advancing flag of fanaticism, the sooner we can
restore stability to the land for which so much of humanity continues
to sacrifice”, the President wrote. Online
