Pakistan Had Misguided Perception of India as a Threat: Obama
Citing shift in Pakistani army’s way of thinking in past some time, US President Barack Obama has said it has begun to realise that the Taliban pose the biggest threat to the country, rather than India.
In a press conference in Washington DC, he said: “You’re starting to see some recognition … that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided.”
Obama said that Pakistan’s biggest threat right now comes internally … and Pakistani military should take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists.
Expressing concern over Taliban activity in Pakistan, he said, “I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan, not because I think they’re immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban will take over … [but] that the civilian government there right now is very fragile.”
Speaking on Pakistan’s being a nuclear power; he said that he was “confident” that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were secure and that the Pakistani army recognises the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands. US and Pakistan, he said, got strong military-to-military consultation and co-operation.
“There has been an over-emphasis on the fear of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of militants,” he said, adding, “Pakistan needs not only the United States, but other important members of the international community to stand by it and help it ride out the current turmoil.”
