© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2002
TAMPA -- Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Pakistan's rookie ambassador to the United States, may be new to the Washington scene but he's hardly a stranger to diplomatic hot spots.
As Pakistan's top envoy in Moscow, Qazi had to deal with the breakup of the Soviet Union. "For a whole year I was ambassador to 15 countries," he says -- but without a 15-fold increase in pay.
And after five years as Pakistan's high commissioner to India, Qazi was ordered to leave New Delhi last May as tensions again flared over the disputed province of Kashmir. Nonetheless, Qazi discovered that New Delhi can be a welcoming place for a Pakistani diplomat -- "They're always wondering what we Pakistanis are up to," he jokes.
Now Qazi, 60, has landed in Washington at a sensitive time in U.S.-Pakistani relations. According to the New York Times, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Pakistan, one of America's closest allies in the war on terror, supplied critical technology for North Korea's secret nuclear weapons program.
Is there any validity to the allegations? "It is simply not true," Qazi says. Pakistan, itself a nuclear power, "has a track record on nuclear export controls that nobody has challenged."
Qazi made his comments on a weekend visit to the Tampa Bay area to help the local Pakistani community -- about 200 families -- belatedly celebrate their nation's Aug. 14 Independence Day. Some 55 years after partition of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan's future is threatened by Islamic extremists opposed to Gen. Pervez Musharraf's cooperation with the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
Extremists in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, have killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and several other Westerners, while hard-line religious parties did better than expected in Pakistan's recent legislative elections.
Moreover, speculation persists that Osama bin Laden and members of his al-Qaida terrorist network escaped from Afghanistan and are hiding in neighboring Pakistan. But, the ambassador said, al-Qaida is no longer the threat it once was.
"We have 60,000 troops patrolling this border and have apprehended 400 people. I don't think there is any possibility for an organized al-Qaida -- they're on the run. . . . We're getting on top of the problem, but to eliminate and eradicate the problem will take time."
Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has been criticized at home and abroad for making himself president for another five years. This month's elections were also widely viewed as a sham since Musharraf retained the power to fire the prime minister and created a military-controlled council that will vet all national policy decisions.
Still, the Bush administration continues to praise Musharraf as a courageous leader who is trying to do the right thing -- a view that Qazi not surprisingly endorses.
"There are elements who are his sworn enemies . . . but a BBC poll gave him a 77 percent approval rating for a job well done," Qazi says. Musharraf has rooted out high-level government corruption and imposed tough new regulations on madrasas, or religious schools, which have been blamed for inciting anti-Western violence.
"He's putting the country on the right direction," Qazi says.
For Pakistan, the upside of cooperating with America in the war on terror has been the positive way in which the world's only superpower now views the country and its leader. The downside is that some of the promised economic aid has yet to come through. Under pressure from the U.S. textile industry, Pakistan, one of the world's biggest cotton producers, is still subject to sharp limits on what it can sell in the U.S. market.
Has the ambassador had a chance to visit the Carolinas and persuade textile makers that Pakistan is no big threat to their industry? "I'm still doing the D.C. scene before moving on," replied Qazi, who presented his credentials to President Bush just a month ago.
On other topics:
IRAQ: Pakistan is "very gratified" to see the United States working with other members of the U.N. Security Council in trying to get Iraq to peacefully dispose of its weapons of mass destruction. "War with Iraq would exercise public opinion throughout the Arab and Muslim world. . . . We do fear the consequences of a unilateral response (by America) that could lead to copycat reactions by other nations."
PAKISTAN-INDIA RELATIONS: With the help of U.S. mediation, tensions have eased and both sides are withdrawing some of the hundreds of thousands of troops massed along the border. But Pakistan insists the Kashmiri problem will never be resolved until India agrees to self-determination by Kashmir's predominantly Muslim population.
AFGHANISTAN: "Conditions are gradually improving, but government authority is by and large confined to the capital and needs to be expanded through the length and breadth of the country. We would like to see the international aid money disbursed more rapidly" to rebuild Afghanistan, much of which is still in the grip of warlords heavily involved in the heroin-poppy trade.
During his visit to Tampa Bay, Qazi stayed with Jamsheed Marker, the veteran Pakistani diplomat who has been ambassador to more countries than any other person, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Marker's wife, Arnaz, took Qazi on a spin through St. Petersburg's waterfront neighborhoods, and he made this startling observation:
"St. Petersburg looks just like Karachi did 50 years ago!"
-- Susan Martin can be reached at Susan@sptimes.com