Washington, May 4 : Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani has said that he and his embassy were receiving threatening phone calls and emails ever since Osama bin Laden was killed in a US operation near Islamabad.
Haqqani said Pakistan would conduct an inquiry into how such an intelligence lapse occurred but added that such threats show how his country's contribution to fighting terrorism was being ignored while only failure being highlighted.
“I'm getting threatening phone calls. My embassy is getting threatening phone calls. They're people sending e-mails saying, instead of recognising what Pakistan has contributed, the failure is being pointed out,” Haqqani told the popular Charlie Rose show.
Haqqani said the Pakistan government will get to the bottom of it but it an important concern right now was to reassure people in the United States that Pakistan as a nation did not look upon Osama bin Laden favourably.
“I think that these questions the President of Pakistan does and will intend to ask everyone. He will ask the ISI leadership to do a complete inquiry and find out what happened, who dropped the ball where,” he said.
“Today I'm going to say since the American intelligence is so convinced about Mullah Omar's location and they do have the means, much better and superior means of finding things out, we have to take this intelligence more seriously and work together with the Americans to locate Mullah Omar and everybody else connected not only to the 9/11 plot but also to the whole concept of global terrorism,” Haqqani said in response to a question.
He admitted that there are people who have been detained and providing support to bin Laden.
“Look, the American team just came, conducted the operation, and left. The rest of the pieces are now in Pakistani hands. We will mine that place for information, and we will share that with our American partners,” he said.
The ambassador acknowledged that the US had trust issues with Pakistan but said even the Pakistanis had trust issues with the Americans.
“We also have trust issues, our internal service has trust issues with Americans because of other reasonable factors. But it's time for everybody to sit down and talk”.
Haqqani said the US forces coming inside Pakistan without any information was an infringement of sovereignty.
“My point of view is I have publicly stated today both in Pakistan and to the US media, I have said Osama bin Laden is also infringing on our sovereignty. He's not a Pakistani.
So this guy comes from another country and sets up shop in our country. It's time for Pakistanis as a nation to wake up and stop making excuses,” he said.
“As far as the government is concerned, as far as the President of Pakistan is concerned, the Prime Minister Pakistan is concerned, I myself, the top military leadership, we get the message and we understand the need of what we need to do,” Haqqani said. PTI
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