Hamid Gul : No domestic acceptance to talks with India in Pakistan

Islamabad, Sep.7 (ANI): Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul said on Friday there was no domestic acceptance of the peace talks between India and Pakistan, because of the perception that it was being done under U.S. pressure on the government.

Speaking exclusively to ANI over phone, Lt. Gen. (retired) Gul said, "There is no scope for these talks to succeed because nobody in Pakistan believes in these talks. This is being done under U.S. pressure. There is no domestic acceptance for any peace talks with India, because Pakistanis don't trust India one bit."

"We doubt India's intention on the water issue, Sir Creek, Siachen, Kashmir, Balochistan and encouraging terror attacks in Pakistan. So, other than a few traders, who think they will benefit from this MFN (Most Favoured Nation) status and trade nonsense, nobody believes in India-Pakistan peace talks here," Lt. Gen. (retired) Gul added.

Gul, who is viewed as the 'Father of the Taliban', said, "India is fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan on behalf of America. Pakistan knows India's intentions and it is not acceptable to us. Same way as it is not acceptable to us that the Pakistan Government is succumbing to U.S. pressure, and is putting the Kashmir issue on the backburner.

"We know it is happening. India has to accept that Kashmir is a disputed territory. What they are doing in Kashmir is not right, morally or legally. India is being used by the U.S. as a bulwark in the region, and therefore, the pressure on the Pakistan Government to go easy on Kashmir. The conditions are such that Pakistan does not have much room for maneuver at this stage," he added.

Continuing with his harangue against India, the former ISI Director General said, " India is meddling heavily in Balochistan and (in) TTP affairs."

Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul was born on November 20, 1936 to Muhammad Khan in the Sargodha District of Punjab. He is a retired high-ranking general officer of the Pakistan Army, and was the ISI Director-General between 1987 and 1989 when the Soviet war in Afghanistan was winding down.

Gul is widely known and credited for the hardline policies against India at the height of the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in the late 1980s and 1990s. He was also instrumental in establishing the Taliban and of allegedly having ties to Islamic terrorist organisations.

His tenure as ISI chief coincided with Benazir Bhutto's term as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Later, he established the Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA), a far-right conservative wing against the MQM and the Pakistan Peoples Party. By Smita Prakash (ANI)