Pakistan

The recent statement by US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, after his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a welcome shift from America's earlier stance of indifference on Kashmir Issue. On a three days' visit to India, William Burns while addressing a press conference said, " It remains our view that a resolution of that (Kashmir) issue has to take into account wishes of the Kashmiri people".

It's an indication that America has come to realize as to how the resolution of Kashmir Issue is linked with war on terror and peace in the region. However, it's just the beginning and Pakistan should not lay high hopes as America will continue to change its stances as it suits it. This shift in American policy, a sort of reward to Pakistan, appears to be due to the serious resolve of Pakistan to wage war on terror as is evident from the ongoing military operation in Malaknd, Swat and Bannu.

Hafiz Saeed, the chief of Jamaat-ul-Dawa had been under preventive detention days after the Mumbai attacks end November last year. The government had detained Hafiz Saeed vide United Nations Security Council Resolution No 1267. The resolution dealt with an arms embargo, freezing the guilty party’s assets, and banning them from travelling abroad, not detention. Apparently the release has come due to a technical point of absence of the mention of detention in the UN SC resolution. India, on the other hand, accuses Hafiz Saeed of being involved in Mumbai attacks.

North America, the entire western world, Russia, India, Afghanistan, Iran and sundry have vowed to fight the menace of Al Qaeda and Taliban as they are the chief source of terrorism the world over. However, it is common knowledge and has become all the more evident during Swat operation that the terrorists are well equipped with sophisticated weaponry manufactured by the countries neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some of the weapons captured during Swat operation also have the manufacturing origin of America. Either this weaponry is being supplied by these countries contrary to their stated political stand of supporting anti terrorist activities or the terrorists are getting plenty of money to buy the weapons on their own, or may be, it is the combination of both. It appears that a big game of politics is going on in which all the aforementioned countries are directly or indirectly supporting terrorism in stead of opposing it for their respective vested interests. Having become a beggar state internationally, we can't point our fingers at anyone, and even if we do, we can't do anything beyond that. We need to put our own house in order in stead of expecting others to do things for us recognizing fully well that others would do what suits them and not us. We need to multiply our intelligence efforts to understand the plot, formulate a comprehensive policy and assemble our indigenous resources to deal with it,