‘Kayani doing backdoor politics after learning from Musharraf’s mistakes’: Wikileaks

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani is doing backdoor politics after learning lessons from former military ruler Pervez Musharraf’s mistakes, according to whistle-blower website Wikileaks, a private TV channel has reported.

According to the released documents, Kayani, after learning from the mistakes made by Musharraf, was using Parliament and the Pakistan government while staying in the background, the Daily Times reported.

In this way, he was becoming an obstacle to any major change in the country’s policy pertaining to FATA, the paper added.

Another document released by Wikileaks revealed that the then US envoy to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, heard a number of complaints about the Kerry-Lugar bill from Kayani and DG ISI Pasha in a two-hour meeting on October 6, The Guardian reported.

Kayani said that there were elements in the bill that would set back the bilateral relationship, and critical provisions were almost entirely directed against the Army.

Both he and Pasha claimed that the bill refused to recognize the enormous progress which had been made bilaterally with the US military and against terrorism within Pakistan.

Kayani was particularly irritated at the assessment required on civilian control of the military since he had no intention of taking over the government. “If I had wanted to do this, I would have done it during the long march,” he said. (ANI)