'Pak considers India, not Afghanistan existential threat'

Washington, Jul 8: Pakistan and its leaders consider India as an existential threat to them not terrorism or Afghanistan, Admiral Mike Mullen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said, noting that Islamabad needs to do more in the war against terrorism.

"We may disagree with this, but I can tell you their existential threat is not Afghanistan, their existential threats aren't terrorists in their country. Their existential threat is India," Mullen told reporters during a luncheon with the Pentagon Press Association.

"And that's where they focus on. I do not think, they are going to not focus on that (existential threat from India). So they keep that. They keep training people. They keep rotating people to that as well," Mullen said when asked why Pakistan is not doing enough in the war against terrorism.

"So I would certainly put it in the category of they haven't done what we want them to do along the lines. Although their frontiers corps two years ago were a force that wasn't well led, wasn't well equipped, wasn't well trained and now all those things have changed and they are much more capable fighting force than they were historically. They have taken on eight or nine different campaigns on that western border," he said.

Noting that the Haqqani network and Quetta shura are the main efforts for Afghanistan, he said their priority has been to work on the threat internal to the country.

"We certainly worked hard to convince that they need to do more there and I do think they need to do more, with respect to both North Waziristan and Quetta. We worked hard to push them as hard as we can," he said.

PTI