Australia sees Sharia deal as positive development Baqir Sajjad Syed
Tuesday, 17 Feb, 2009 | 12:42 AM PST | Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith arrives with his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi for talks at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. -AFP Photo ISLAMABAD: Australia on Monday saw the agreement between NWFP government and Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Mohammadi (TNSM) as a positive development and said military enforcement was not the only option in counter-terrorism.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is on a three day visit to Pakistan and traveled to Peshawar and tribal areas on Monday, told media at a joint press conference with his counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi that what we have is a positive development.
We certainly believe that combating extremism and terrorism is not just military enforcement, it also needs civil capacity building, civilian reconstruction and dialogue, said Mr Smith.
However, the Australian foreign minister, whose country holds significant influence in Commonwealth, cautioned against an unfavourable outcome, similar to the fate of agreements made by the government with extremists in the past.
The remarks by Foreign Minister Smith on the peace deal are given great importance by the diplomatic observers because it was being expected that the agreement would irk the US and other western countries, which have been skeptical of such arrangements on the grounds that they give time and opportunity to the militants to regroup and rearm.
Australia that has significant interest in counter-terrorism further proposed a four times increase in the number of Pakistani armed forces personnel being trained in Australia and making the military dialogue between the services chiefs of the two countries a regular feature.
He believed that the most effective way through which Australia could share its wealth of experience in counter-terrorism with Pakistani forces was through training. This thinking led to substantial increase in the number of training arrangements open to Pakistani military personnel.
He acknowledged that difficulty of topography and terrain, the complexity of history of people living in the tribal areas and the porous Pak-Afghan borders were some of the attributes that made the counter-insurgency job in this region difficult.
Stressing on Australias counter-terrorism support for Pakistan, he said, Australia stood shoulder to shoulder with Pakistan as it dealt with this most difficult challenge.
He further hoped that Pakistan with international support would be able to surmount this challenge by the extremists and make normal everyday occurrences to take place.
The Australian foreign minister also announced a significant increase in development assistance for Pakistan in areas requiring capacity building like health, civil society, democracy and tolerance. However, he did not exactly quantify the increase in development assistance.
Speaking on the issue of strained Pak-India relations, Mr Smith said, Australia had a significant interest in South Asia and also in Mumbai incident in which two Australians were killed.
He welcomed Pakistans response to the Indian dossier and called on India to respond favourably to it. He also called for resumption of the stalled Composite Dialogue between the two neighbours.
We welcome the first steps in last couple of days, we hope there is a positive ongoing response to that.
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