Pakistan rejects US papers negative portrayal of its anti-terror role

Pakistan on Tuesday chided a leading US newspaper for accepting as “hard truth” the accusations made by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about Pakistani collusion with Afghan militants.“Your Sept 24 editorial ‘The Latest Ugly Truth About Pakistan’ is disappointing, to say the least,” a spokesman of the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations said of the New York Times’ comments.“To this day, no evidence of the Pakistani intelligence agency’s support to the militants of the Haqqani network or any other group has been provided to the government of Pakistan, and the agency has categorically denied having any links to them,” Press Counselor Mian Jehangir Iqbal wrote.“If there is any evidence, the best course would have been to discuss it with Pakistan, an ally in the war on terrorism,” he said.Pakistan’s policy, he added, has always been to seek a more intensive engagement with the United States.The letter said, “The question is whether Admiral Mullen, the retiring top military officer, is trying to make Pakistan a scapegoat for the troubled war in Afghanistan. We hope not.“And we regret that you cast Pakistan’s role in the fight against terrorism and extremism in a negative light. As a result of Pakistan’s efforts to root out terrorism, the country has lost more than 30,000 civilian men, women and children and more than 5,000 armed forces personnel, and has suffered billions of dollars in economic losses. Pakistan has thus paid a heavy price for being a front-line state against terrorism.”