Honourable Secretary General,
Members of the North Atlantic Council,

I feel honoured to be speaking to this important forum to share Pakistan’s perspective on the challenges faced by Pakistan and the security situation in the region. Three visits to the NATO Headquarters in the last three weeks – The visit of a Parliamentary delegation led by Chairman Senate on NATO’s invitation, the visit of the Army Chief General Kayani to attend the meeting of NATO Chiefs of Defence and Army Chiefs of ISAF, and my visit today, testify the growing Pakistan, NATO cooperation.

We are grateful to NATO for enhancing cooperation with Pakistan and the sizeable number of courses offered to both our Defence and Civilian officers.

We have no doubt that this cooperation is for mutual benefit. Our joint efforts in Afghanistan and against terrorism will bring about stability. We are both partners and we both are shedding blood together to make our region and world a safer place. We share the same objectives of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. Peace and stability in Afghanistan is essential to forge economic linkages.

Pakistan has been in the eye of the storm for quite sometime. It still is. But the situation is looking up. Like all developed and developing countries, we too have had our share of challenges both Internal and External.

Which need to be identified :

Despite these challenges, the situation is looking up. If we look at the current situation, our today looks certainly better than yesterday. My optimism stems from the following factors: At the political level, there has been some positive Developments.

Politically: The situation has stabilized. The elections held in 2008 defied all opinion polls. Various Pundits had predicted extremists taking over NWFP and Balochistan – two provinces close to Afghanistan border. Election results surprised everyone.

The people of Pakistan overwhelmingly voted in favour of moderate political parties. It was a vote against the forces of extremism and intolerance. The assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto had united the entire nation against such forces. At the centre and at the provinces, we have coalition governments. All institutions are working in accordance with the constitution and Opposition Parties are playing a healthy and constructive role.

The People’s Party’s government in association with our coalition partners is working to empower women, protecting the rights of minorities, improving the human rights situation. Political reforms in Gilgit Baltistan and Balochistan Development package will address the longstanding demands of the people. We are also introducing political and judicial reforms in FATA.

Press Freedom has helped the people to debate and discuss issues of their concerns in an open and frank manner. The media highlights issues of governance, human rights situation, political and developmental issues and thereby helping the Government in putting in place a corrective mechanism.

The restoration of Judges sacked in November 2007 for their refusal to bow down to pressure exerted by the previous government speaks volumes about the strength of the people, members of the civil society and media. It also demonstrates that democracy, rule of law, independence of judiciary, independent media and supremacy of the Parliament have been and remain the raison d’etre of the people of Pakistan.

Economically, too the situation is getting better. The economic down turn that we suffered due to global financial crisis and terrorism is being corrected with better management of the economy and with the help of our friends. The FODP process which was initiated last year has been a successful endeavour and we are receiving assistance in priority areas such as Energy, Agriculture, Infrastructure Development, Health and Education. The National Finance Commission Award, whereby Financial Resources have been equitably distributed amongst provinces will remove provincial disharmony.

In order to grapple with extremism and violence in Swat and tribal areas, we had launched military operations. The Military operations were launched with the support of the public and the political parties. They have been a huge success. Within three months of the launch of military operations in Swat, we restored the writ of the government in Swat, eliminated terrorists, looked after the displaced people from the area and rehabilitated them. Normal life has been restored in Swat.

Our military operations in South Waziristan were completed in 5 weeks. We have now launched operations in North Waziristan. Our military operations in the tribal areas will also help situation in Afghanistan. Despite all these positives, we still face a number of challenges. We face the challenges of poverty and inequality, challenge to provide quality education and health to our people and we have to provide speedy justice to our people. We face the challenge to rebuilt infrastructure destroyed by terrorists.

While it would take long term planning and sustained efforts and additional resources to meet these challenges, for the immediate we will have to focus on terrorism and economy. Our successes achieved in Swat and Waziristan can only be sustained if we initiate development work, provide employment, restore business confidence help build their shops and houses destroyed by extremists. We have to rebuild school, colleges of boys and girls destroyed by terrorists. Rebuilding infrastructure in Swat alone would cost us around $ 2 billion.

We have to revive our economy. For the revival of our economy, we need market access for our exports. Exports will create more industries, more employment and less terrorism. Unemployed youth will not become an easy prey to the extremists predators. We have suffered massive losses due to extremism and terrorism. The cost of war on terror since 2004 has been estimated to be in the range of 40-50 billion dollars. In 2009 alone, nearly 5000 people lost their lives and more than 12000 were injured. More than 2000 security officers lost their lives in the military operations.

The indirect costs include drop in investment, inability to proceed with the development work, loss of production time and high cost of supporting displaced persons, flight of capital and closure of business activity. It is imperative that in areas cleared by the security forces, we should immediately launch developmental activities. We are working with the US Administration for the establishment of reconstruction opportunity zones ROZ’s in FATA.

External Challenges: Externally we have concerns over the situation on our western border as well as tension with our eastern neighbour, India.

On Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO share common objectives to bring about stability. The successful military operations by us in Swat and Waziristan give us a lot of confidence that we would be able to drive out militants and stabilize situation in FATA and areas along Pakistan-Afghanistan border. We are more concerned about the situation in Afghanistan. Extremists receive sustenance from Afghanistan. It is now time to follow a comprehensive strategy to bring about a change in Afghanistan. Three decades of conflict, strife, intervention and interference in the Affairs of Afghanistan have disrupted Afghanistan’s peace and stability.

An effective comprehensive strategy to fix the situation in Afghanistan would require both military and political components. Afghanistan has suffered on account of ineffective governance and lack of capacity on the part of the Afghanistan government and the coalition forces to enforce law and extend control over vast tracts of the country. Increased focus on military solutions while failing to address the local issues such as reconciliation and integration, lack of proper representation of all parties, nexus between drug barons, warlords and extremists and tendency to manipulate the situation by external forces had further complicated the situation. There have been some recent positive developments. Many components of the new strategy announced by President Obama is aligned to what Pakistan has been advocating for some time. Though we have concerns with regard to some elements.

We will remain engaged with the US Administration and other partners in the EU, NATO and elsewhere in developing convergences in our respective strategies to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan. Restoration of peace, stability and national reconciliation through an Afghan led broad based and inclusive political process remains a primary challenge. The core objective of an appropriate political strategy should rest on sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. We have to ensure the neutrality of Afghanistan. No country should be allowed to go beyond its legitimate mandate in Afghanistan.

We have to keep in mind that no war can be won without public support. It is imperative to win public support to international efforts in Afghanistan. This would involve an effective government in Kabul alongwith massive reconstruction efforts by the international community. Simultaneity of actions and an integrated approach is the way to success. The London Conference was expected to achieve this objective and meant to develop synergies between the military and political strategies. I have no doubt that by rectifying the mistakes of the past and by following a coordinated and integrated approach, we will be able to make progress.

India While talking about the security situation in our region, I deem it important to briefly discuss the situation on our Eastern border as well. While talking about India, I would at the out set state that India is an important neighbour of Pakistan with whom we would like to maintain peaceful and friendly relations based on sovereign equality and mutual respect.

In our quest to have a stable, peaceful, prosperous South Asia, we were engaged in a peace process with India for the resolution of all our outstanding disputes including over Kashmir, Siachen and water. We had made good progress. We were having useful discussions on Kashmir and Siachen. We had developed an Anti-terrorism Mechanism to discuss our respective concerns. We had shared some evidence with India over the activities of some Indian elements in Balochistan and Afghanistan under the same mechanism. We had made good progress on instituting nuclear and conventional confidence building measures.

Trade between the two countries had increased from 300 million dollars in 2003 to 1.3 billions dollars in 2007. Both Pakistan and India were reaping the benefits of the peace process. The dialogue process was unfortunately disrupted due to the Mumbai terrorist attacks which were condemned by us. Mumbai should have provided us an opportunity to fight the forces of extremists and terrorists. We too have suffered Mumbai type attacks on a regular basis. Those who carry out such attacks are enemies of both India and Pakistan. It is imperative that we resume the dialogue process to address all our issues and resolve them in accordance with International legality, justice and fair play. We need to give up the wooden headed approach that we have been following since the last 63 years.

With these words I thank you all once again.