DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Musharraf Able Influence US To Resume Aid, Would Be His Return Ticket To Pakistan....NSI News Source Info # 2214(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 13, 2011: Former president Pervez Musharraf has warned of dire consequences from the recent US decision to suspend $800 million of military aid to Pakistan, saying the move was not in the best interest of the two countries.
“Certainly it will be disastrous,” Musharraf said during a speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on Monday evening, according to media reports. “It is not in the best interest of Pakistan but also not in the best interest of the United States. If Pakistan is weakened how do we fight terrorism?”
“We are weakening the country and the Army,” Musharraf said at the university’s Baker Institute of Public Policy. “It will have a negative effect certainly on the Pakistan Army, on its capability to fight terrorism.”
Musharraf said he was saddened by the ‘present environment of confrontation almost between Pakistan and the United States, between the two armies, the two intelligence services’. “It saddens me because I remember when there was trust,” he said, pointing to what he said were his strong relationships with President George W Bush and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. “I could pick up the phone,” he said. “The line was always open. I wonder now if that degree of communication exists.” He said there was a ‘trust deficit’ and a ‘confidence deficit’ between the countries and the restoration of better relations depended on leadership and straight talk.
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