Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that involvement of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in terrorist activities in Pakistan is not a new thing and this fact cannot be denied.

In an exclusive interview to BBC, she said that most of the information about the Indian interference in Pakistan’s affairs could be available with the interior minister. She however said that she knew this that India had been interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan through Balochistan and Afghanistan. This is an undeniable fact, she added.

Across the border in India, she said, allegation were levelled repeatedly that Pakistan was promoting terrorism in India.

To a question about the prospects of a durable peace in the region with particular reference to Pakistan and India, she said if a country believes that igniting fire in another country would not burn it, it was a sheer misconception. Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran and China are part of one neighbourhood, she added. “If my home is set ablaze then neighbours too will suffer. Intelligence agencies of Pakistan and India may think that they are setting each other’s homes on fire, but I think they are torching their own homes,” she said.

Criticising the recent statement of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, she said this statement was against the diplomatic decorum. She said that Ghani levelled clear allegations against Pakistan. “In my view, it was against the diplomatic norms. Ghani cannot achieve his objectives through this statement,” she said.

Commenting on the relationship between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the military leadership, she said that someone would have to take the constitutional responsibility otherwise there would be a vacuum and some other force would fill this vacuum. “Then who is at fault; one who created the vacuum or the one who filled the vacuum?” she asked. If the government does not appoint a full-time foreign minister, someone will have to fill this vacuum, she added.