Embracing less 'acrimonious' ties with India would help most Pak citizens: Editorial

Islamabad, Oct.31 (ANI): Visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, through her blunt and tough talks, urged Pakistan during her recent visit to realise the 'existential threat' posed by the extremists and work towards normalising situation with India, which would then help the country counter the numerous problems facing it.

While analysts and experts are busy analysing Clinton's unprecedented statements, which surely has upset a faction of the Pakistani political circle, an editorial in one of the leading English dailies of the country seconded the top US Diplomat's view.

An editorial in The News said it was obvious that having a less hostile relationship with India would benefit the people on both sides of the border and help allay the otherwise heightened tension.

"Overcoming the militant threat and entering in to a less acrimonious relationship with India would benefit most citizens. There are segments that would stand to lose, but ways must be found to prevent them from subverting the interests of the majority. They have done so repeatedly through the decades since 1947," the editorial said.

It highlighted that the Obama Administration has also realised the fact that a cordial relationship between India and Pakistan is the ultimate solution to some of the problems in the region.

"The Bush administration's virtually blind backing for former president Musharraf created a number of the problems we face today. Our political leaders must assess the way we can most effectively counter these," it said.

"If we are honest, we cannot deny that much of what she (Clinton) said was true. For reasons buried in ideology, many of us, whether we draw influence from the right or the left of the political spectrum, have difficulty in suggesting that an alliance with the US could benefit Pakistan," the editorial went on to add.

The editorial concluded that Islamabad must utilise the opportunity, arising after Clinton's visit, to lay out a more open relationship both with the US and India in order to pull the state of the vicious circle that it has entered into.

"The opportunities for a more open relation laid out by the secretary of state need to be seized and utilized to pull our country out of the pit into which it has stumbled as a result of errors made in the past," it said. (ANI)