India trying to create anti-Pak Afghanistan, claims Musharraf

"India-Afghan relations are bothering Pakistan. I personally feel India is trying to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan and I have tremendous intelligence from my own time to prove this. I know it," Musharraf said during a talk at American think tank 'Council on Foreign Relations' here.

"If this is happening in our backyard, if somebody is stabbing us in the back, then we have to make some arrangements," he said.

He said with the US forces readying to leave Afghanistan in 2014, Pakistan is interested to "safeguard" itself from the fallout of what happens in the country post-2014.

"I would like to ask the question why does India want influence in Afghanistan. Do they want to stretch out to Central Asian republics, is this some action against China? What is their (India's) requirement (to have influence in Afghanistan). The requirement is to trouble Pakistan," Musharraf said.

The former Pakistani military ruler said Islamabad can help Kabul in its fight against the Taliban because Pakistan has been helping Afghanistan since the time it was fighting the Soviets in the 1980s.

"If India is trying to influence there (Afghanistan) using a minority which is anti-Pakistan, how does Pakistan fend for itself... If President (Hamid) Karzai and Afghanistan find it suitable to have a strategic agreement with India, then what do you expect from Pakistan?"

Musharraf, who is planning a political comeback, said India teaming up with Afghanistan "is nothing new".

Right from Pakistan's birth in 1947, Afghanistan has been in the "eastern camp" under the influence of the Soviet Union and India, he claimed.

Musharraf accused Indian and Soviet intelligence agencies -- RAW and the KGB -- of being "in league" with the Afghan security unit Khad and "always troubling Pakistan."
He said Pakistan wants a stable Afghanistan, and while it does not want to interfere in Kabul's affairs, "we don't want any (other) outside  interference" either.

He said he had repeatedly told Karzai to send his intelligence and security personnel, diplomats and army officials to Pakistan for training but they instead go to India.

"I have been bending backward to tell Afghanistan and Karzai to send them (security personnel) to Pakistan, all our training institutes are open to them free of cost. Not one has come even today. What is the issue, nobody is trying to understand Pakistan's point of view. The issue is an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan," Musharraf said.

On Kashmir, Musharraf said the decades-long issue has to be resolved soon as that will relieve Pakistan of its "religious militancy."

When asked to comment on Pakistan sending terrorists to India, he said "your terrorist is somebody else's freedom fighter."

Stating that a 1948 UN resolution on Kashmir still remains "unimplemented," he said "We (Pakistan) are a victim from the East and the West.

"Forget the UN resolution, but at least move forward and let us resolve the Kashmir dispute so that...Pakistan is relieved of this religious militancy."

Musharraf further said US-Pakistan relations are currently at the "lowest ebb" and only clear communications between the two allies in the war on terror can improve their ties.
Pakistan has the onus of explaining to the world whether it was "complicity or negligence on its part" as to how al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding undetected in Abbottabad, he said.

"I am sure it is negligence. Pakistan has to prove it is negligence and not complicity. It is a very difficult task to prove," he said, adding that the other issue that requires an explanation from Islamabad is why is it "not acting against Siraj Haqqani"?

He said the US, on its part must clarify whether it will be leaving a stable or unstable Afghanistan when its troops leave the country in 2014 as an unstable neighbouring country is not good for Pakistan's health.