India wants to 'create anti-Pakistan Afghanistan': Musharraf

WASHINGTON: As concerns mounted over Pakistan's military and intelligence links with terror groups, the country's former military ruler Gen Parvez Musharraf has accused India of seeking to "create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan".

Describing Afghanistan as a proxy war between India and Pakistan, Musharraf claimed at a forum here that Afghanistan was sending its "diplomats, soldiers and intelligence staff" to India where they were being indoctrinated against Pakistan.

Without dwelling on recent charges by top US military officials that Pakistan's military intelligence was running terror groups like the Haqqani network, Musharraf said US needs to understand Islamabad's "sensitivities about Afghanistan's relationship with India".

"In Afghanistan, there is some kind of a proxy conflict going on between Pakistan and India," he said. "India is trying to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan," The ABC news reported.

Musharraf made the charges as part of the rolling panels at the Washington Ideas Forum taking place at the Newseum. It came as President Barack Obama voiced concern over Pakistan's military and intelligence links with extremists, observing the US finds this "troubling."

Obama said that Pakistan should realise that a peaceful approach towards India would be in "everybody's interests."

Without naming the Haqqani network with whom Pakistan's spy agency ISI is suspected to be having links, Obama described the extremists as "unsavoury characters".

The former Pakistan military ruler said India did not seek to take over Pakistan militarily but charged that it wants to dominate Pakistan in the area of foreign policy, economic policy, trade and commerce.

He claimed that when he was in power he had offered Afghanistan free military training but "not one man has come to Pakistan for training."

In question-answer, Musharraf was flooded with queries about complicity of Pakistan army with terror groups.

Musharraf replied that he was convinced that bin Laden hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was not about Pakistani government complicity, but a "terrible case of negligence" and speculated that the worsening US-Pakistan relationship might be because of the lack of a personal relationship between the leaders of both countries.

Musharraf said personal relationships with President Bush and Colin Powell helped ease tensions. He recalled that Powell said to him, "Let's talk general to general," which resulted "in straight upright talking" that resolved issues.

"I wonder whether that exists now, that understanding, that mutual confidence," he said. "Maybe it is not there and, therefore, yes, there is a total breakdown of confidence and that is what is harming the relationship.