Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in an exclusive interview with TIME — his first since the raid that killed Osama bin Laden — warned Wednesday that continuing to work with the United States could imperil his government, unless Washington takes drastic steps to restore trust and win over 180 million Pakistanis. Despite the clamor of criticism in Washington alleging Pakistani duplicity over the fact that the al-Qaeda leader had been hiding out in the sleepy garrison town of Abbottabad, Gilani claimed the role of aggrieved party in a deteriorating relationship. He complained repeatedly throughout the 45-minute breakfast interview about the widening “trust deficit” between the two allies.
Alternating between Urdu and English, the Prime Minister said cooperation between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI , had broken down, and that Washington and Islamabad differed on how to fight terror and forge an exit strategy in Afghanistan. He did, however, for the first time publicly offer to support U.S. drone strikes inside Pakistan, provided that Pakistan was in on the decision making.
Gilani warned that his government was accountable to an electorate increasingly hostile to the U.S. “I am not an army dictator, I’m a public figure,” the Prime Minister told TIME, speaking at his palatial hilltop residence in Islamabad. “If public opinion is against you [referring to his U.S. allies] then I cannot resist it to stand with you. I have to go with public opinion.” While the bin Laden debacle has raised calls in Washington to pressure Pakistan for more cooperation, in Islamabad the it has raised further hostility towards the U.S.
Speaking of the Abbottabad raid, Gilani said, “Naturally, we wondered why they went unilaterally. If we’re fighting a war together, we have to work together. Even if there was credible and actionable information, then we should have done it jointly.” Addressing his parliament on Monday, Gilani had warned the U.S. against further such strikes on its soil.
The Prime Minister said that he was first alerted to the raid through a 2 a.m. call from Pakistan’s Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Gilani then called his foreign secretary and asked him to demand an explanation from U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter. “I have not met or spoken to [U.S. officials] since,” he complained. “Whatever information we are receiving is from the media. Today, we have said that we want them to talk to us directly.”
Gilani says the drone war weakens his efforts to rally public support for the fight against extremism. “No one can win a war without the support of the public,” he said. “I say that this is my war, but when drones strike, the people ask, ‘Whose war is this, then?’ ” Still, Gilani said — for the first time, publicly — that he was open to renegotiating the terms of the CIA’s program.
“A drone strategy can be worked out,” Gilani said. “If drone strikes are effective, then we should evolve a common strategy to win over public opinion. Our position is that the technology should be transferred to us.”
Still, he added, he would countenance a policy in which the CIA would continue to operate the drones “where they are used under our supervision.” That statement marks a departure from Pakistan’s frequent public denunciations of drone strikes as intolerable violations of sovereignty.
Despite his constant references to the trust-deficit, Gilani hoped to see a restoration of closer ties with Washington, but put the onus on Washington to gain the support of Pakistani citizens. “They should do something for the public which will persuade them that the U.S. is supportive of Pakistan,” he said. As an example, he enviously cited the 2008 U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. “It’s our public that’s dying, but the deal is happening there,” the prime minister said, adopting a wounded tone. “You claim there’s a strategic partnership? That we’re best friends?” Casting his eyes up at his chandeliered ceiling, Gilani reached for a verse. “When we passed each other, she didn’t deign to even say hello,” he intoned, quoting the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. “How, then, can I believe that our parting caused her any tears?”
See all of TIME’s bin Laden coverage.
See the 2011 TIME 100.
