Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Things Changing Rapidly in Pakistan

Aired November 14, 2001 - 10:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Tom Mintier has been posted in Islamabad for some time now, things changing rapidly across the border.

And, Tom, of course that means things are changing rapidly in Pakistan as well -- Tom.

TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Most definitely, Miles.

And the story we have been watching the last 36 hours is the whereabouts and the status of the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan. Yesterday, he left Pakistan, going back to Kandahar inside Afghanistan, but he was seen by CNN staff on the Pakistani side of the border.

Now the embassy says they are still open and operating and the ambassador will be coming back, but Pakistani sources tell us it is quite possible the ambassador indeed will not return, and the same Pakistani sources say that the status of the Taliban embassy here may be downgraded not to an ambassadorial level right now. That would be an interesting change, because the president of Pakistan has maintained he wanted to allow the embassy to stay open as a means of communities to the Taliban.

Now while the political and military situation is changing hour by hour, one thing is not changing is the humanitarian crisis on the ground.

Joining me is Lindsay Davies with World Food Programme.

Lindsay, you reported today that your drivers, Afghan drivers, in both Quetta and Peshawar, will no longer drive trucks, at least not now, with aid into Afghanistan. What is this going to do for people of Afghanistan?

LINDSAY DAVIES, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME: With the changing events in the past 72 hours, that has been the most direct impact, particularly from Pakistan. We ship a lot of food into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and yesterday, as well as today, the Afghan truck drivers would not move, because of fear and uncertainty on the ground.

MINTIER: What is it they fear? Do they fear the Taliban? Do they the Northern Alliance? What is it they fear and won't go for?

DAVIES: I think it's fear of the unknown, fear of the unpredictable situation, fear of possible troop movement on the road.

MINTIER: What about the people, though? Their situation is not really going to change. Their hunger is not going to go away, no matter what the political landscape becomes inside Afghanistan. Are you able to get any food into Afghanistan at all?

DAVIES: That's a very important point, because although we haven't been able to get in it in from the southern corridors in Pakistan, we have been moving the food across Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. That is still ruling, and we are still able to get food into several locations in the north of the country.

MINTIER: Any idea when you can get food into the south?

DAVIES: Well, it's really a very volatile picture and very unpredictable. We really just have to wait and see how the situation evolves, but we have got the food, we've got the trucks. We just need to seize any window of opportunity to make sure we can start to push that food in.

MINTIER: All right, Lindsay Davies from the World Food Programme, thank you very much. The people on the ground waiting to see what situation will be. For many people it will mean the difference between survival and not surviving, because they are in so desperate need of food -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Challenges to Pakistan on how does it want to define its role in Afghanistan's future as things change. Joining us to talk about this is Mansoor Ijaz. He is an expert on Pakistani affairs.

Thank you for being with us.

The situation is obviously a bit chaotic right now, but let's try to sort through it, if you will.

First of all, I presume you have some discomfort with the assumption of power of the Northern Alliance in Kabul, given the fact that it is not ethnically representative of the Pashtuns.

MANSOOR IJAZ, PAKISTAN ANALYST: I think that the problem is not just the ethnic representation, Miles. The problem is also that the Northern Alliance had essentially moved against wishes of the United States and the allies at a very, very sensitive time, when General Musharraf was not yet back in Pakistan, when the Pakistanis had expressed very clear wishes that the political solutions for Afghanistan's future would be already toward go the minute that they took Kabul. I think that's part of what the problem is.

O'BRIEN: But just to bring out their point on all of this, what they have been saying, and of course neither of us are there, so we don't know for sure what happens, what they are saying was essentially the Taliban had vacating Kabul, and it was descending into lawlessness, and it was just an attempt to enter into a vacuum. Do you discredit that statement?

IJAZ: I think it's very difficult to, as you say, know for sure exactly what happened. But even if the Taliban had vacated, the Northern Alliance had a responsibility to make sure that we were all as an alliance, including the United States, Russia, all the partners, ready to take on the responsibility of forming and putting a new government in place, and that is not yet what has been done.

O'BRIEN: You know, there is an expression, possession is 9/10 of the law. Do you suspect that it is going to difficult to sort of put the genie back in the bottle here now that the Northern Alliance is there?

IJAZ: That's the great concern. This is where our, you know, ally Pakistan is at enormous discomfort at the moment, because if possession is 9/10 of the law and the Northern Alliance has a friendly relationship with India, has a friendly relationship with Iran, Pakistan is stuck in the middle of this very compressed situation, and there is going to come a point in the not so distant future when General Musharraf and his core commanders will have to make a very serious set of decisions about, when does their national security interest get compromised by America's war on terrorism.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's take it one step further, then, if they dram that conclusion, what next then?

IJAZ: Well, I think that -- I hope we don't get that far. I think the way this has to be handled is that the United States has to tell the Northern Alliance to immediately convene the council of tribal elders to make sure that a political solution can be put in place.

The second thing that has to be done is that we have to ensure that they have to understand economic assistance to rebuild Afghanistan will not be forthcoming if a viable, political broad-based government is not in place, and finally, we have to take advantage of the fact that President Putin is here in the United States right now, and insure that the Russians are with us on one very important point, and that is that if it becomes necessary, we have to choke off the arms supply to the Northern Alliance to insure that they don't commit atrocities against their own people.

O'BRIEN: I hate to do this to you. We don't have a lot of time right now. But just briefly -- I'm sorry, we're going to have to cut it short. Mansoor Ijaz, I apologize.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com