Musharraf saved Pakistan from isolation: Najam Sethi

[Naveed Yaseen]

LAHORE: India could have allied with the US if former president Pervez Musharraf had refused to join the war on terror after the September 11 attacks, Daily Times Editor-in-Chief Najam Sethi said on Friday.

Talking in a Dunya News programme, Sethi said Musharraf’s decision to join the international coalition against terrorism had saved Pakistan from being isolated.

He said the former president had also rescued the country’s nuclear programme by sacrificing Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan over the issue of illegal nuclear proliferation. He said Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden wanted to liberate Palestine by defeating the US.

He said Bin Laden had to set up his camps in Afghanistan after the Sudanese government expelled him. Sethi said the Al Qaeda leader knew about Pakistan after his stay in Peshawar as well as his participation in the Afghan jihad. Sethi said that Osama also had links with Pakistani politicians. After 9/11, the US had asked Musharraf to inform the Taliban to abandon Al Qaeda, as the international militant network had a clear hand in the attacks.

“Tell us are you with us or not,” former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage had asked then Inter-Services Intelligence director general Mahmood Ahmad. Sethi said Musharraf had sent a delegation of religious scholars to Afghanistan in an attempt to convince the Taliban to expel Al Qaeda and its leadership. But Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar had refused to expel Al Qaeda from Afghanistan.

He said both Pakistan and India should work for regional peace so that South Asia could develop. He said all military governments had supported the US only for financial support and maximum relief to extend their own power.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_34