Canadian Foreign Minister: Pakistan's Deals a Threat

In fact, some would argue that it may get worse if they're cutting deals with the Taliban,". Globe and Mail

Count me in that camp.

OTTAWA -- Hopes that Pakistan's new government would prevent Taliban insurgents from crossing the border with Afghanistan are being dashed by deals with tribal groups that threaten to give them freer rein, Defence Minister Peter MacKay warned yesterday.

Pakistan's unstable new government has insisted it is only striking security deals with "peace-loving" tribal groups to secure control over its fractious tribal regions along the Afghan border, but U.S. officials have raised fears the agreements to withdraw Pakistani security forces will ease pressure on insurgents.

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"With a new government, there was hope that this was going to lead to greater, more robust participation on their part. It hasn't quite turned out that way. In fact, some would argue that it may get worse if they're cutting deals with the Taliban," Mr. MacKay said in an interview from London, en route from a NATO conference in Brussels.

"It certainly could make it worse if they're making agreements that they will lay off - that is, the Pakistan security forces will not, essentially, press them, and arrest them if need be, and the understanding is as long as they don't cause problems inside their borders, they'll be left alone. Well, that doesn't do us any good. And it certainly doesn't do Afghanistan any good at all."

Canada's 2,500 troops operate mainly in Kandahar province, in Afghanistan's southeast, where insurgents are often able to slip over the Pakistan border to regroup.

Mr. MacKay said that more border police, checkpoints, aerial surveillance and even fences are needed, but also "various countries, at the highest levels" will have to apply intensified diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to do more to control the border.

"That border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is still a sieve. And you have insurgents being plucked out of those incubators, those refugee camps in Pakistan, and they're still flooding into the country," he said.