KARACHI: A US State Department
official in a meeting urged President Asif Ali Zardari against accepting
Iran’s offer of concessional oil for Pakistan and providing Iran with a
foothold in Pakistan, a ‘Secret’ American diplomatic cable reveals. The meeting between Richard Boucher, US
Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia during the Bush
administration, and President Zardari took place on October 18, 2008 at
the Aiwan-e-Sadr, during which Mr Zardari apprised the visiting official
of the Iranian offer that the President “did not believe he could
refuse.” “How could he go to the National Assembly and tell them Iran
had offered the assistance and Pakistan had turned it down, he asked
rhetorically,” the then US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson
wrote in the cable dated October 22, 2008, referring to President
Zardari. She added that, “Boucher reminded him of Ambassador Haqqani’s
recent conversation with Deputy Secretary Negroponte in which the Deputy
cautioned against providing Iran with a toehold in Pakistan.” The cable
illustrates how US officials tried influencing Pakistan’s policy not
only with regard to Iran but also indicates how and with whom Pakistan
had been dealing with at the time in order to meet its energy
requirements. The American caution about Irani oil is consistent with
the US government’s efforts to isolate Iran both militarily and
economically. The oil offer was discussed months after Pakistan’s
Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had approved the revised gas
purchase agreement between Islamabad and Tehran for the import of gas
through the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline (formerly the Iran-Pakistan-India
gas pipeline). The US has continually expressed its reservations over
the project from which India withdrew in 2008
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