29 March 2017•Update: 29 March 2017
By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistan’s military has weighed in on claims made by a former Pakistani envoy to Washington about his role in issuing visas to American intelligence assets, saying the new revelations vindicate its longstanding claims.
In recent weeks, the government and the main opposition party have been locked in a brewing controversy over the issuance of visas to the U.S. intelligence officials by the previous and the incumbent governments.
Earlier this month, former Pakistani ambassador to Washington Hussein Haqqani implied in an American daily he had issued visas to U.S. intelligence officials with the approval of the then Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) government.
Haqqani also claimed in his Washington Post article that his efforts proved to be crucial in the America’s fight against terrorists, which under the former President Barack Obama led administration was able to zero in on Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan’s military garrison town of Abbottabad.
Pakistani military spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor tweeted Wednesday: “Views of Hussain Haqqani pub [published] in a mainstream US newspaper esp [especially on] his account on issue of visas vindicate stance of Pak's state institutions.1/2
“The veracity of concerns about his role in the entire issue also stands confirmed.”
Former President Asif Ali Zardari and then Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, two senior politicians of the PPP, have also rejected Haqqani’s claim, saying the envoy was leveling such allegations only to seek attention from the new Donald Trump-led U.S. administration.
Haqqani is based in the U.S. and according to his Twitter profile, he is a director at the Hudson Institute – a foreign policy think tank.
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif and other government officials, who all come from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, term Haqqani’s claims as a charge sheet against the PPP, and have demanded the formation of a parliamentary commission to investigate the matter.
In response, Rehman Malik, who served as the interior minister in the PPP government between 2008 and 2013, alleged that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government too was issuing visas to U.S. “spies”.
“Has the government stopped receiving the [Coalition Support Fund] CSF, which is received by the Ministry of Finance and dispersed through the Ministry of Defense?” he asked.
“If the CSF is stopped, then the [present] government will not issue visas to US officials... In fact, the process of issuance of visas to U.S. officials has never been stopped by the present government,” Malik was quoted as saying by the English daily Dawn on Wednesday.
Pakistan has been receiving the U.S. grant under the banner of CSF since 2002 when Islamabad joined Washington’s so-called war against terror.
Malik’s assertion followed an announcement made by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan earlier this week that the government had withdrawn powers of its Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. to issue visas on his own.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry and the U.S. embassy in Islamabad refused to comment on Malik’s claim. “We do not comment on intelligence matters,” a US embassy spokesman wrote to Anadolu Agency.
“This [Malik’s] was a political statement. We don’t need to comment on that,” a foreign office official wishing not to be named told Anadolu Agency.
History of ‘spies’
The government and the opposition often accuse each other of allowing CIA agents to operate in the country, but their presence on Pakistani soil has never been a secret.
In November 2013, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party led by the country’s cricket hero, Imran Khan, accused the then CIA station chief in Islamabad for being involved in drone strikes that reportedly killed several people in northwestern Hangu district.
The U.S. withdrew its then CIA station chief in Pakistan, Jonathan Bank, after he was named in a murder case by the Islamabad police for his alleged involvement in the killing of a son and brother of an anti-drone activist Kareem Khan in an airstrike in restive North Waziristan tribal agency in 2010.
Another CIA agent Raymond Davis was arrested in northeastern Lahore city in February 2011 for killing two alleged Pakistani intelligence personnel who were reportedly shadowing him.
Davis was later released after the deceased’s families were reportedly paid $2.4 million as monetary compensation.
The then federal government of the PPP, and the state government of Punjab province led by Premier Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) reportedly played a role in courting the deceased’s families to accept monetary compensation and “forgive” the CIA agent.
