Washington, Oct 1(ANI): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has called for the resumption of "serious dialogue" between Washington and Islamabad, saying that recent verbal assaults by American officials are damaging the bilateral relationship and compromising common counterterrorism goals.
"Democracy always favors dialogue over confrontation. So, too, in Pakistan, where the terrorists who threaten both our country and the United States have gained the most from the recent verbal assaults some in America have made against Pakistan," Zardari wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post.
"This strategy is damaging the relationship between Pakistan and the United States and compromising common goals in defeating terrorism, extremism and fanaticism. It is time for the rhetoric to cool and for serious dialogue between allies to resume," he added.
When Pakistan commits to a partnership against terrorism, it does it in the hope that joint goals will be addressed, and looks for outcomes that will leave the country stronger, the president said.
"Yet as Pakistan is pounded by the ravages of globally driven climate change, with floods once again making millions of our citizens homeless, we find that, instead of a dialogue with our closest strategic ally, we are spoken to instead of being heard. We are being battered by nature and by our friends. This has shocked a nation that is bearing the brunt of the terrorist whirlwind in the region," he rued.
Zardari said that Pakistan struggles to hold the line against the tidal wave of extremism that surges into the country each day from internationally controlled areas of Afghanistan.
"While we are accused of harboring extremism, the United States is engaged in outreach and negotiations with the very same groups," he added.
Zardari noted that Pakistan and the US are on convergent policy tracks, but that their rhetoric "has split us onto divergent roads."
He said that the recent US accusations against Pakistan have been a serious setback to the war effort and their joint strategic interests.
"It is not as if Pakistanis will stop reclaiming our terrain, inch by inch, from the extremists, even without the United States. We are a tenacious people. We will not allow religion to become the trigger for terrorism or persecution," he maintained.
"But when we don't strategize together, and when an ally is informed instead of consulted, we both suffer. The sooner we stop shooting verbal arrows at each other and coordinate our resources against the advancing flag of fanaticism, the sooner we can restore stability to the land for which so much of humanity continues to sacrifice," Zardari added. (ANI)
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