WASHINGTON :US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has commended the firm anti-terrorism resolve of Pakistan’s democratic government, asking the critics to try and understand the complexity and toughness of the challenge along the mountainous Pak-Afghan border.
In one of her last interviews, the top outgoing American diplomat drew attention to the historical factors that gave rise to the problem of extremist violence in the region and stressed understanding of the difficult terrain.
“We’re working with the Pakistanis, both to provide opportunities so people don’t turn to extremism, but also to do what you can to eliminate the extremist threat”.
“And you’ve got a good civilian Pakistani Government that I think is dedicated to that cause,” she told the American Urban Radio.
Continuing, Rice said, “they (Pakistanis) don’t always have the means, and we’re trying to help them with the means, but it’s a tough fight.”
“Again, that’s one of the most ungoverned, longest ungoverned regions in the world. And it’s tough terrain. And anybody who thinks it’s easy, again, I’d say fly over it and see what it looks like, and you’ll know why it’s not easy,” she added.
Tracing historical reasons behind exacerbation of the problem in Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, she pointed out that “one of the problems is that Pakistan after the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Pakistan was a transit point for the fighters, foreign fighters going in to fight the Soviets.
After the war, a lot of them didn’t go home, and that’s given Pakistan a devastating extremist problem, she said.
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