Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif is escorted by his security personnel as he waves to supporters while he leaves after an election meeting in Rawalpindi yesterday.
ISLAMABAD: Nawaz Sharif, seen as the front-runner in Pakistan’s election race, said he would not allow militant groups to attack India from his country and would work to improve ties with rival New Delhi, if elected.
“If I become the prime minister I will make sure that the Pakistani soil is not used for any such designs against India,” Sharif told CNN-IBN in an interview.
Despite recent strains, India -Pakistan relations have improved after nose-diving in 2008 when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in a three-day rampage India blamed on a Pakistani militant group.
According to opinion polls, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) is expected to win Saturday’s general election after capitalising on the failure of the outgoing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to tackle everything from power cuts to a Taliban insurgency.
The liberal, secular-leaning PPP has a long history of challenging the military’s influence in politics while the army sees the party as corrupt and ineffective.
The poll comes after a civilian government has for the first time completed a full five-year term. But whoever wins will inherit enormous problems. One of them will be managing a difficult relationship with India.
The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars since the partition of British-ruled India in 1947.
India has for years accused Pakistan of supporting Muslim militants and sending them into the Indian part of the divided Kashmir region to fight Indian forces. Pakistan denies arming militants and says it only offers moral support to people of Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Although both countries began a peace process in 2004, they remain deeply suspicious of each other. Their antagonism has spilled over into Afghanistan where they compete for influence and have tended to support rival Afghan forces.
Strategic ally the US wants Pakistan and India to bury their differences so Pakistan can focus on helping stabilise Afghanistan before most Nato combat troops leave by the end of 2014.
Sharif, who was prime minister twice in the 1990s, said it was time to improve ties between New Delhi and Islamabad.
“We have issues which need to be resolved and I think I can cite you a lot of examples where rivals or people opposed to each other, countries opposed to each other have resolved much difficult problems than we have.”
Sharif, critical of military meddling in civilian affairs, said he would call for a joint investigation into whether Pakistani intelligence agencies played any role in the Mumbai attack. “I will take up this matter. Certainly this matter will have to be taken up,” he said.
Reuters
