'We're working with Tajikistan to help bring electricity to Pakistan'
KARACHI (April 26 2008): US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher has said his country is working with Tajikistan to help bring electricity south to Pakistan, where Pakistan really needs the electricity.
In the State Department Foreign Press Center briefing, the senior official also speaks at length about Pakistan government's approach of negotiating with the tribes. According to him: "It [negotiating with tribes] is not something new in this area. President Musharraf's government [PML(Q)-led coalition] did it, previous Pakistani governments did it and British governments did it."
"Go back as far as you can and you find out that there has always been an element of negotiation, an element of force, an element of development. In a way, that's Basic Counterinsurgency 101. If you look at how anybody's operating in those kind of situations, you see that you have to talk to people," he says.
The US State Department official also says that his country is working with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to develop electricity lines and supply for Afghanistan, because Afghanistan needs electricity and they can generate it. We're working with Tajikistan to help bring electricity south to Pakistan, where Pakistan really needs the electricity. The following are excerpts from State Department Foreign Press Center briefing on "the years ahead in South and Central Asia" by Richard Boucher in Washington on Wednesday:
BOUCHER: But I wanted to make a few comments in the beginning. And you know, in a way it's good that it took me so long to get over here because a lot of what we're going to do this year, what we're dealing with this year has to do with what's happened in the last few months.
And I think there's a new sense of momentum, a new sense of energy in a lot of parts of this region of South and Central Asia. And a lot of new opportunities have opened up, particularly because some of the things that happened in the early part of this year.
We've had an election in Pakistan. It's a successful transition to democratic government. As we'd said before the election - we hoped the election would produce a democratic government with a strong moderate center - and indeed they formed a coalition of centrist parties. And everybody there, I think, is looking at how to move forward as a modern society and to encourage moderation and have a stable basis themselves to fight the extremism and the terrorism that afflicts Pakistan as well the neighbourhood and the world beyond.
I think one of the most key things that I keep hearing, from Pakistanis in the new government, is they understand this is their struggle, this is their war, and that they want to approach it using all possible means, which means providing people with better opportunity and education but also using force when necessary.
The democratic transformation in Pakistan offers us, I think, a clear opportunity. And we ourselves in the United States government are talking to the new government and looking ourselves at how we can be more engaged in this sort of broad-based approach to, you might say, modernising Pakistan, stabilising Pakistan.
We've also had a very significant meeting on Afghanistan, with our Nato and ISAF partners, in Bucharest where you heard, from the international community, a strong long-term commitment, again broad-based, using all available tools and means to bring stability to Afghanistan.
And we've had one of the appointments that I think sort of reflects where I'd like to see the effort concentrate this year. And that's the appointment of Kai Eide as the new special representative for the UN secretary-general for Afghanistan. He's already been out in Afghanistan. He'll be visiting Washington next week. You'll have a chance to talk to him further.
But one of the really important efforts this year is to better co-ordinate all aspects of the effort in Afghanistan, is to improve the co-ordination and concentrate the effort, so that particularly when you get down to district level in Afghanistan, if you can bring in military forces necessary to deal with the bad guys, the insurgents, then you need to bring in good governance; you need to bring in police; you need to bring in small projects; you need to talk to the people and the tribes who are there; you need to start connecting them to the national grid, electronics, the electrical system, connecting them to the road system.
And so a real opportunity there, I think, if we can co-ordinate well, that's what brings stability. Extending the government, extending the capabilities of the government, into the districts, is what brings real stability in Afghanistan.
And so the appointment of Kai Eide, as a better co-ordinator for the international community, I think, is also a sign of our intention to co-ordinate all these efforts, between ISAF, between the UN, between the donors and between the Afghan government.
Q: Let me just read you this - oh, I'm sorry. Barry Schweid, Associated Press. For clarity, I might as well read you the AP lead here: "Pakistan freed a pro-Taliban cleric and quickly signed an accord with his hard-line group Monday, the first major step by the new government to talk peace with militants and break with President Pervez Musharraf's policy of using force."
You spoke positively of developments in Pakistan. You, I think, described them as on a path of democracy. Is this an isolated case, do you think? Or can we now expect democracy to represent itself by making deals with Taliban fighters and other hard-liners. Is that what the US wants?
BOUCHER: You want me to rewrite the lead for you? (Laughter.) Or you just want a general comment?
Q: I wanted a general - he's an elderly guy, say, and maybe it's a hard case.
BOUCHER: I'm happy to rewrite the lead for you if you want me to make it more accurate.
Q: All right.
BOUCHER: But let's not do that here. I think we understand, the Pakistani government has always understood, that there is an element of force; there is an element of negotiation. I mean, negotiating with the tribes in this area is not something new. President Musharraf's government did it. Previous Pakistani governments did it. British governments did it.
Go back as far as you can and you find out that there has always been an element of negotiation, an element of force, an element of development. In a way, that's Basic Counterinsurgency 101. If you look at how anybody's operating in those kind of situations, you see that you have to talk to people.
I just spent an hour, probably an hour-and-a-half with about 10 representatives of - various tribal elders and representatives of tribes from the border areas, both the Pakistan side and the Afghan side. And the message I got from them is, work with us; support the Jirga process; we can talk these things out; we can bring people over and we can work with you as necessary where there are violent elements that have to be dealt with.
So I think that is the approach that all of us share. The Pakistani government is engaged in a number of discussions and negotiations right now. The release of Sufi Muhammad came as a result of one of those agreements. As far as we understand it, the agreement says that they - his group will not resort to violence. They will abandon violence. They will stop supporting violent elements. And whatever they want to advocate, they will advocate peacefully.
That's important. Getting the tribes on your side is important. Getting people who have been involved in violence, in the past, to abandon violence and take on a peaceful path is important. Now, what's been the problem? The problem has been that many times, those deals are reached and they're not enforced; that if one side - the other side violates the agreements, the other side, as in the past, has said there will be no Taliban, there will be no al Qaeda activity around here, and then that activity starts up again, who's going to deal with it?
So I think to us, negotiations are a tactic. They're a part of the whole picture. One of the keys is to have enforceable agreements, enforceable negotiations and a willingness to make sure these things are followed. So I don't think there's - you know, it's not the negotiation per se. It's not a new tactic but it's got to be done with a way to make sure it produces results. The results are what matter. The outcome is what matters.
There has to be less violent activity. There has to be an end to the al Qaeda elements, who are very dangerous, who are up there plotting and planning, not so much in this case in the Swat Valley but certainly in the cases of Waziristan, where there's negotiations going on. And that's the outcome that matters, and everybody has to be focused on that.
Q: (Name inaudible) - from Pakistan's Dawn Newspaper.Two things. This is about the peace deal between Pakistan and the militants. Did they take you into confidence before they started the negotiations? And did you give some sort of a sketch or an outline, what you expect from these talks and how you want Pakistan to deal with it if the militants break their promise and go back to violence?
And also, there was a statement today - it's attributed to one of your senior officials who visited Islamabad - saying that the United States does not want to impose its views on Pakistan on the judicial issue and that they will have no problem with the reinstatement either way; they're not for it or against it. So is it some bit of a change in US attitude on this issue?
BOUCHER: No. And the answer to the first part is, a little bit. We've had - I guess the subject of negotiations, the subject of approaches to the tribal areas, whether it's the economic development of these areas, tribal area strategic development plan, whether it's a question of security transformation and dealing with the security problem, or whether it's the issue of the political context of negotiations, it's a matter of these are all things we discuss very frequently with Pakistani officials.
During Under - Deputy secretary Negroponte's trip, in some of the meetings I had afterwards, we talked about all these issues with the new political leaders, the prime minister and others, talked about them with people in the military and people we knew who had been in the government for a while.
So to that extent, yes, this is a regular subject of conversation with members of the Pakistani government. We've heard a lot of their views and will continue to listen to their views and discuss these issues with them.
As far as a particular deal having been discussed with us, frankly I haven't had any conversations about Sufi Muhammad or some of the things going on in Waziristan. But I'm sure our embassy has. I just don't know. I mean, I think we generally kind of know what's going on. We probably read your newspaper every morning to find out. But we also have our own conversations.
So I'd just say generally we're pretty much aware of the ideas and plans the Pakistani government makes, to try to solve the problems in the tribal areas. We're supportive. That's, I think, our main role, is to support these things; support the transformation of the Frontier Corps into a capable security organisation; support the sustainable development plan so that people can get an education, can get jobs instead of having to take up a gun in those areas; and support the political context, which is really mostly a Pakistani effort of the new government, to change the political context for those areas as well.
Q: (Name and affiliation inaudible.)In relation to Afghanistan, given the developments in Afghanistan and problems, especially the security one, does it have any bad impact on Central Asian countries, given the fact that they can use Afghanistan as their trade route with other countries? If you can, comment on that. Thank you.
BOUCHER: I think Afghanistan is vital to the Central Asian countries, for good and for bad, that what's happening now in Afghanistan, stabilising Afghanistan as an open economy, as a friendly nation for everyone, is really not just necessary to fight the terrorism that we're all concerned about, but it's a strategic and historic shift. I mean, for several hundred years - some would say for thousand years - Afghanistan has been a barrier between Central Asia and South Asia.
It's prevented, largely prevented people from moving across. Certainly for the last couple hundred years, it's been the barrier between empires. Now for Afghanistan to open up - as an open nation, a trading nation, a nation with good relations all around - really presents everybody in the region with a new strategic opportunity - everybody from India, with a potential new source of energy and a place to export to; to Pakistan, which becomes a logical port and hub for a lot of this trade; Afghanistan, which becomes a transit point and contributor to the trade; or Central Asia which, in addition to their ties to Russia, China, Europe, gets to open up another set of export routes and avenues.
So we do believe that the development in Afghanistan is vital to these countries and presents a tremendous opportunity. At the same time, the problems of Afghanistan, the problems of terrorism and narcotics are very much of concern to the countries of Central Asia. So we're working with them on how to control the problems, how to deal with terrorism, how to deal with better control of borders, how to deal with narcotics flow, working together at the center that is being organised in Almaty on sharing information on narcotics trafficking so we can stop it better.
But we're also working with them on the opportunities we opened last August. Secretary Gutierrez and I opened a bridge between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. And if you look at what's going on in the region, there's enough roads being built by us and Japan and the Asian Development Bank and the Chinese and others that there's really coming together an Almaty-to-Karachi highway that this bridge is part of.
That's new, that's different, that's good, and that's an opportunity. Customs revenues across that bridge have already increased 10 times since last August across that crossing point. So there's definitely an opportunity there.
We're working with all the countries, all the neighbouring countries of the North - Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - to develop electricity lines and supply for Afghanistan, because Afghanistan needs electricity and they can generate it. We're working with Tajikistan to help bring electricity south to Pakistan, where Pakistan really needs the electricity.
So all these things are happening. So I think, yes, the problems of Afghanistan are problems for the region, but the opportunities of Afghanistan are strategic and historic opportunities for the region as well, and we work on it all.
Q: Thank you. Good afternoon, I'm Meredith Buel with Voice of America. To follow up on Barry's question and the correspondent from Dawn's question, to be clear, Dawn has on the front page today that Pakistan's new government has drafted a peace agreement with Taliban militants in the tribal belt. And it quotes both Taliban spokesmen by name and Pakistani officials unnamed as confirming this.
In the past, the United States has said it was very concerned about this sort of an agreement, that these agreements have not worked in the past and have only allowed the Taliban to regroup and al Qaeda to regroup in an environment under which they are under no military pressure. This would also appear to be a major change in Pakistan's policy on how to deal with militants, certainly from the time before this election.
Has the United States changed its approach or policy or feeling about this type of negotiations and peace deal, or are you still concerned that it could allow the militants in the tribal areas to regroup, to plan attacks against the West, and some of the other concerns that you've had in the past?
BOUCHER: I guess - I'm happy to give you the same answer I gave to your colleagues. And I don't understand a question that says, gosh, this is new and it hasn't worked in the past; because it's either not new or it has no history to it. So let's deal with the issue of, you know, previous agreements have put on paper things like -
Q: (Off mike) - what?
BOUCHER: Previous agreements in these areas have put on paper things like no Taliban activity, no "Talibanization," no al Qaeda activity, no cross-border activity. Where these agreements have failed is not in what they put on the piece of paper, not the understandings reached with the militants or the tribes. It was the understandings were not kept and that there was no - no one made clear that they had to be enforced.
And so if you look back at what we said, say, in September 2006 when they reached the deal, we said maybe it will work; and by the end of the year, we say, hey, this is not working because it wasn't enforced. And it was the lack of enforcement that I think was the real problem there.
So, everybody involved in doing this again - and it has happened many more times in various places. Sometimes I supposed it's worked. But in reaching those agreements now, we just have to keep that experience in mind and make sure that everybody understands that it is important to work with the tribal leaders.
And some of those involved in these discussions already make the distinctions that these are understandings being reached with the tribes, not with the militant organisations. We'll see. That may be a better formula.
But in the end, it's the outcome that matters; are these agreements going to produce an end to the cross-border infiltration, an end to the suicide bombers that head into other parts of Pakistan as well as into Pakistan, an end to the plotting and planning of al Qaeda from this area?
The gentlemen that I talked to today, the tribal leaders - tribal elders from both sides of the border, said they can; that given the right agreements and the right support, they can make sure it results in that kind of outcome. But we all understand, you know, it's the outcome that matters, and we all have to be careful to make sure it achieves that outcome.
Q: Can I follow up?
BOUCHER: Sure.
Q: Thank you. So is the United States supporting Pakistan's effort to negotiate with the Taliban and reach a peace agreement with the Taliban and al Qaeda-supporting groups in the tribal areas of Pakistan?
BOUCHER: We understand that negotiating with the tribes - I make a distinction between the tribes and the Taliban and al Qaeda - but negotiating with the tribes especially is one of the tactics that needs to be used along with other measures. But in the end, any particular agreement can only be judged by whether it stops militant activity and produces the safest situation for all.
Business Recorder [Pakistan's First Financial Daily]
