‘Pak Army’s sacrifices significant’

LAHORE: Pakistan’s concerns over border management against the backdrop of Afghanistan’s non acceptance of the Durand Line, are and will remain real.

“The Pakistan Army has been countering the terrorists and had given significant sacrifices, but the army is stretched,” a veteran journalist and Senior Correspondent of Associated Press (AP) in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kathy Gannon said while addressing the Centre for Governance and Policy at Information Technology University (ITU), Punjab, here on Wednesday.

According to a press release issued here, she said that ‘Pakistan was not just paranoid, it has both Indian and Afghan antagonism to deal with as its concerns were genuine in view of its strategic importance.’

Commenting on the Taliban, on whom she has reported since their inception, Gannon said that ‘their aim was purely political, religion does not have any direct impact.’ Gannon, a Canadian national, was the only foreign journalist allowed by Taliban to cover Afghanistan. Afghan government was corrupt to such extent that even to pay your utility bill you have to pay bribe, she added.

Speaking specifically on Afghanistan Gannon noted that while Afghans were angry with foreigners on their soil and neighboring Pakistan, ‘there was overwhelming anger in Afghanistan against their own government.’

‘The Pashtuns were glad to see the Taliban go, but were alienated by the Bonn Agreement,’ Gannon, who has covered Afghanistan for over a decade noted. Speaking from a personal perspective she noted that even though she was shot at in Afghanistan, she remained undeterred and continued to work in the region.

‘The actions of one mad man will not affect me,’ she said. Reporting in conflict zones is difficult and independence of movement and work is complicated, Gannon noted, while explaining a journalist’s embedded role with the different entities.