US backing for India makes things difficult for Pakistan, says Hilaly

We can handle India on our own but not when the US sides with our eastern neighbour. This view was expressed by former ambassador Zafar Hilaly while in conversation with journalist Mujahid Barelvi at a discussion sponsored by the Oxford University Press (Pakistan) at the Dolmen Mall bookshop on Wednesday evening.

He said the US was supplying India with enriched uranium, the main ingredient of the nuclear bomb. Besides, the US has so many other strategic treaties with India like the one on the sharing of military bases and intelligence.

The US, by implication, Hilaly said, had made it clear to Pakistan its overwhelming preference for India and that the US would never side with Pakistan against our eastern neighbour. “The US is imposing sanctions on Turkey for procuring the S-100 air defence system from Russia but is supplying equally sophisticated systems to India,” he said. He referred to the genocide of the Muslims in India-held Kashmir and said that despite its repeated condemnations of human right violations around the world, there had been no word of condemnation from the US.

“One of the problems in ties with India is extremist organisations like the RSS. This is Modi’s India, not Nehru’s. I don’t see anything happening between Pakistan and India except for the lingering acrimony,” Hilaly remarked.

Referring to the US-Pakistan ties, he said, “Our ties with the US have been an unhappy marriage and as such the sooner we terminate them, the better.” He said that in the present context, our interest lay in cordial ties with Russia, China, Iran and Turkey. “We should concentrate on people with whom we have an affinity.”

In reply to a question from Barelvi as regards our lack of economic independence, he said, “Pompeo made it clear that our economics was all wrong. Funds have to filter down to the masses, at the village level. Only when people benefit from the resources would we be economically independent.” He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken the right decision in not going to the United Nations opening session as the UN was nothing more than a talk shop.

He further remarked, “Right now, you are an American super market.” In reply to Barelvi’s opening question as to how the government will---or should---conduct its foreign policy, he said that there were two cornerstones of a foreign policy, security and economics. The former, he said, helped us to withstand pressures while the latter ensured public welfare.

He said that the quality of civil and foreign services had deteriorated a great deal and he blamed the late ZA Bhutto for that. When he appeared for the CSS exam, he said, it was a really competitive affair and the foreign service was really the pick of the intellectual elite but Bhutto started his lateral entry foreign service whereby the most unqualified and intellectually dim people were sent on foreign service assignments just because they were party ideologues and factotums. He narrated an instance where Bhutto appointed people to the foreign service at meetings.

The topic of the discussion was, “New foreign policy approaches for a new Pakistan”. Earlier, Arshad Saeed Hussain, managing director, Oxford University Press, welcomed the guests and introduced host Mujahid Barelvi, and the chief guest Zafar Hilaly.