Australia welcomes plan for dialogue with Taliban
Updated
Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has decribed Pakistan as a nation facing an 'existential threat', but are the United States, Britain and Australia prepared for the possibility of Pakistan declining into a failed state.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Stephen Smith, Australia's Foreign Minister
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SMITH: Well I wouldn't describe Pakistan as failed state, certainly Pakistan has got very serious security and economic and social challenges, and the international community very much including Australia, very much has to render assistance to Pakistan at this time. And certainly we can't allow Pakistan's position to deteriorate. Pakistan is strategically a very important country, located in South Asia, close to Central Asia, close to the Middle East. It's the second largest Muslim populated country in the world and on population estimates it will overtake Indonesia in the first half of this century. So it's a very strategically important country. And I think there's now an appreciation that the extremist challenge, the the militant challenge, that the terrorist challenge is now as much a threat to Pakistan's own existence as it is a difficulty for Afghanistan on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
LAM: Indeed the Pakistani government admits as much that it's posing a grave threat to secular rule in Pakistan. If Pakistan were to become a failed state do we have any contingency plan to deal with such a crisis?
SMITH: Well our contingency is to make sure that Pakistan doesn't get to that position. That's why Australia at the United Nations General Assembly last year in September was one of the founding members of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan, which includes the United States, includes United Arab Emirates, includes a range of countries who like us are very concerned to ensure that Pakistan gets every assistance on the economic front, on the social front, on the security front. So we think there's a very strong appreciation on the part of the new US administration that this is a critical issue not just to the United States but for the international community. And Australia has certainly been making that point for some considerable time, and I made it strongly when I returned from Pakistan, and all of that has been underlined by the terrible attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in recent days.
LAM: And might Australia perhaps consider lending military assistance to Pakistan as part of a wider alliance?
SMITH: Well we certainly don't have in mind troops on the ground. We have a number of potential memorandums of understanding that we are progressing, particularly as it relates to cooperation between our police. But we've made it clear that we're happy to engage in greater training of Pakistan military officers and I announced when I was in Pakistan a four-fold increase of the number of defence officers who will engage in training. So we think there's a role for us in terms of security and strategic advice in training terms. We don't see a role for us in terms of troops on the ground. But we do want to be as supportive as we can in the defence and security cooperation area. And Pakistan Foreign Minister Qureshi has warmly welcomed that.
LAM: So what do you make of President Barack Obama's latest suggestion that perhaps a dialogue could be opened up with the more moderate elements if there is such a thing of the Taliban in Afghanistan?
SMITH: Well this is a point that Australia has made in the past that at some point in the cycle there does have to be a political dialogue amongst the Afghanistan leadership and we also know that there are some people who are attracted to terrorism to attracted to militancy because they see no other course. They're not necessarily hard core terrorists, they may well be people who don't see any alternative and the notion of the Afghanistan political leadership opening up a political dialogue does provide an alternative to terrorism or militancy being the only way in which people might see themselves as having a role. So we have made similar comments ourselves in the past that Afghanistan won't be resolved, the challenges that we face in Afghanistan which is presenting a safe haven or a hotbed of international terrorism. Those issues won't be confronted or resolved in the absence of, not just a military contribution but also a capacity building or a civilian capacity building contribution, and also at some point in the cycle a political dialogue. So those comments are comments that we have ourselves made and in the context of the review which the Obama administration is doing certainly that is a pointer to the new US administration also very clear understanding that we have not just an issue in Afghanistan, we have an issue in Pakistan but also so far as Afghanistan is concerned that it is more than just military enforcement action that is required to bring about a successful response in Afghanistan.
