The Hindu : Front Page : Pakistan admits to creating militant groups

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Thursday, Jul 09, 2009
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Pakistan admits to creating militant groups

Nirupama Subramanian

Nurtured for tactical reasons
No denial of remark yet by Presidency

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has, for the first time, acknowledged at the highest level that militant groups were created and nurtured by it for “tactical” objectives.

Speaking to retired civil servants, who met him on Tuesday night to discuss national issues, President Asif Ali Zardari said militants and extremists had been “deliberately created and nurtured” as a policy for “short-term tactical objectives.”

Apparently, a reference to the use of jihadist groups by the Pakistan security establishment to further strategic goals in Kashmir and Afghanistan, the statement was the first acknowledgement by a government leader of a policy that has been an open secret for years and is widely blamed for the country’s present troubles.

Before this, the former President, Pervez Musharraf, came close to a similar acknowledgement in a January 2004 joint statement with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in which Pakistan committed itself to not allowing militant groups to use its territory to carry out attacks in India.

But Mr. Zardari has articulated it in brutally clear terms. Importantly, there has been no denial yet by the Presidency or a clarification that he was misquoted, or quoted out of context.

“Let us be truthful and make a candid admission of the reality,” the President told the retired federal secretaries and senior bureaucrats.

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