Pakistan needs 'countermeasures' against close Indo-Afghan ties: Musharraf

Washington, Oct 27(ANI): Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has warned that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will need to take 'countermeasures to protect its own interest' if Afghanistan gets too close to India or if the United States leaves the war-torn country unstable.

"India is trying to create anti-Pakistan Afghanistan. This is most unfortunate, and I am not saying this because I have some (Indo-centric ?) - and I'm anti-India. I know this through intelligence; I know this to be a fact," Musharraf said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

"Today - and just to give you one proof: Today, in Afghanistan, Afghanistan diplomats, the intelligence people, the security people, the army men go - all go to India for training. I, in my time...bending backwards, offering to President Karzai to send them to Pakistan, all our training institutions open, free of cost - not one till day - to date has come to Pakistan," he told the audience.

The former military ruler alleged that the Afghans go to India, get indoctrinated against Pakistan and come back.

"Over the years since our independence, Afghanistan always has been anti-Pakistan because Soviet Union and India have very close relation in Afghanistan. And the intelligence agency, KGB, RAW and KHAD of Afghanistan have always been in cooperation and talking since 1950s," Musharraf said.

"So we must not allow this to continue because then one must not grudge if Pakistan orders ISI to take countermeasures to protect its own interest," he added.

Taking about US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, Musharraf said Pakistan would have to take its own countermeasures based on whether the US would leave a stable or an unstable Afghanistan.

"I would be remiss if I did not point out that there are some areas where United States should also understand Pakistan's sensitivity and also give comfort, I would say, to Pakistan. Number one is, United States has decided to leave in 2014 - leave Afghanistan," he said.

"If even I was a leader there, I would have come in, interacted: You analyze, you give me an analysis; what do you see when you leave Afghanistan? Are you leaving a stable Afghanistan or an unstable Afghanistan? Because based on that, I in Pakistan will have to take my own countermeasures," he added. (ANI)