 like Hawaii, I'm your host, Kandur, and today we have a very special guest. He's the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, and he's come up with an excellent compilation of diplomatic footprints. That is also the title of his book. So we talk about this compilation. The important part about this book is that it is all about the reflections from a diplomatic perspective. Ambassador Azar, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So, sir, tell us about diplomatic footprints, your latest book, and what is it all about? Well, it is a memoir, and it has my story, but also the story of Pakistan, as I saw it, as well as the foreign policy of Pakistan. So in that sense, it dubbets these stories. You know, I believe that we all, you know, grow up, we all get educated. We find some livelihood. And then we get to old and pass out and pass away. It's about that time that one thinks that how would I be remembered? And so I thought I should be remembered by the book that I have left behind. This book is for posterity, for diplomats of the future, and of course, my own legacy. Okay, so, I mean, if we go into the content of the book and we tell people to speak about, you know, your personal reflections, what are those two to three very, very important reflections that you feel need to be publicized more? I think we see Pakistan's relationship with its important neighbor, India, as a saga of missed opportunities. And we have, I have since dealt with that subject, this process between India and Pakistan. So I've spoken at length on how those opportunities arose, and then unfortunately, they could never be in cashed in. And we remain estranged, even today. And that's not something good for Pakistan, not good for India, not good for the region. And so I think my book does contain those kind of lessons, which hopefully future diplomats and future leaders will pick and mend what we could not. Okay, so, I mean, I was going through your book just for now, and, you know, there are lots of passages with regard to your meetings with some very prominent state officials. And you have a meeting with President Barack Obama. You also have had interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. So tell us a little bit about that interaction with President Barack Obama and what it was all about. Well, I happen to accompany the Prime Minister of Pakistan in both of these meetings. President Barack Obama is a man of sharp wits, and he impressed me a lot. And I must say, he remembered his talking points. He spoke what he must, and we responded, you know, according to our own brief. My sense is that at that time, the Americans were keen on finding some solution for the Afghanistan crisis. And that was the focus of the meeting with President Barack Obama. We could not actually find a solution because Americans had a very different perspective of dealing with that matter. They wanted a military victory, which was not forthcoming. And we were more for a political solution. But I must say President Barack Obama is always very civil, always comes out as a genuine, sincere interpreter. So I really enjoyed that opportunity with President Putin. Again, a man of very sharp intellect, I would say we were in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which he was hosting. So as a host, he had spent the whole day in the office and holding bilateral, bilateral meetings with the heads of state and government. And our term came something around 7 30 p.m. And it was at that time one would be very tired and most of us were joining, but I saw him very, very alert. And what surprised me was that he was so alert that he listened to our Prime Minister's proxy points, responded to each one of them and then picked up his own notes and shuffled through them to see if he had missed any and he had missed only one and which he then narrated. So that shows the man had enormous energy, which of course is working to his best. Okay. So when we talk about diplomacy about diplomacy these days is all about ensuring that you know your net it can actually go across. We have a world which is deeply polarized. You have the Ukraine crisis on one hand, obviously the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic on the other. You also have these US-China rivalry in the Asia Pacific. Now being, you know, in your shoes, for example, obviously you're not the Pakistani ambassador to the United States anymore, but you were the foreign ambassador. What key diplomatic, you could say tactics should have been used in general to try and diffuse crisis of such proportion. What in your view is the tactfulness of diplomacy that can actually be applied when the world is deeply polarized as it is today? Well, my sense is that US runs its foreign policy based on its interests and honestly tactics don't really work that much. The United States is not a monolith. As you know, it's a huge country, but there are different centers of power that are led by the president is one, but then there is the US Congress, which is all powerful too. Then you have the think tank community and the academia and you have media, very powerful media. So you have to engage all these centers of power in order to convince the people of the United States and public opinion matters. If the people of United States can get convinced about your narrative, then it helps to talk to the executive. And my sense is that for Pakistan, the leverage that we had was peace in Afghanistan. If we could have enabled the United States to attain peace in Afghanistan at that time, that was our leverage. But unfortunately, as I indicated to you, there was a big difference of approach. United States wanted a military victory and Pakistan thought there was a political solution to that problem. And therefore, we went back and forth and we couldn't really find a solution. Meanwhile, the public opinion within the US was growing. That why are we engaging in distant wars in such long wars which are so expensive? And you saw that after Donald Trump, President Biden also followed suit and saw the US withdrawing its troops, rather hurriedly, I must say. Okay, so when we talk about the shrewdness of diplomacy, it's also important to make sure that you also do not alienate even your adversaries to that matter. We all know that Pakistan has this running, you could say, feud with India. We're not in a state of conflict as such. We haven't really fought any wars. But India's annexation of Kashmir on one hand and then obviously you've had Pakistan retaliating with calling out Indian illegal occupied Jammu and Kashmir and the atrocities that have been committed over there. So when dealing with adversaries specifically, what do you think should diplomats basically do to try and make sure that they can navigate through, secure their national interest, and also make sure that the message is sent to the adversary as well? I think the primary job of any diplomat is to win France, win France for Pakistan. Even in the adversary country, Pakistan, then there are many, many friends that you can find in India because of historical links, because of familial links. That should be our job. That should remain our primary task. But in addition to that, the world has discovered that the economic linkages, the commercial linkages have a much longer life and act as a peace constituency between countries. In my view, I think Pakistan and India haven't really fully explored the value of trade as a peace constituency, as a lever of peace. We could not learn the lesson from Europe, which had seen centuries of bloodshed, but then they realized that it was trade that would actually bind them together. And similarly, in ASEAN too, people are discovering that they can overcome their differences if they engage in economic and commercial investments. I think Pakistan and India have been unfortunate that this never became a priority. As a result, we remain at loggerheads. Okay. All right. So when we talk about the United States in general, obviously you served in Washington, do you think that your reflections in your book would have been slightly different, had you been dealing with the Donald Trump administration? Well, actually, I presented my credentials to Donald Trump. And I must say that at that time, the relationship was not really moving forward in the sense that the government of the United States was contemplating withdrawal from Afghanistan, was also contemplating building up India as a counterweight to China. And therefore, Pakistan wasn't, they weren't really sure how to deal with Pakistan. But the beauty in dealing with the USA is that, but excuse me, while you have the executive or the government-to-government relationship, there's a people-to-people relationship which also exists in parallel. And that's very strong, actually. And it is my sense that while the G-to-G relationship has oscillated between highs and lows, the P-to-P relationship has somehow survived. And not only survived, but thrived. And for students of Pakistan, the United States had been, is and probably will be an attractive destination for the IT professionals. Silicon Valley is something that they look forward to for the traders of Pakistan. As you know, the United States is the largest trading partner of Pakistan. So there are a number of areas in which the US and Pakistan have maintained people-to-people relationship. That state, even at that time when I was there, so as a result, while the executive was through to focused on Afghanistan, I took the opportunity to reach out to a number of think tanks and academia. The university, I think, has travelled around the US and also met over 60 US senators and congressmen, one on one. And I realize that the United States and its legislators as well as its academia, they're all open to arguments. They're open to different viewpoints. And I think that is due to the US policy because it gets enriched from different perspectives. And so there is always a scope for countries to deal with the United States. And so it was the case when I was there in the US. Okay. So when we talk about, you know, let's just generalize the context. I mean, if we talk about some uncomfortable conversations that you might have had as, you know, the Pakistan ambassador to the United States, were there any such conversations? Well, yes, there were plenty. Because you see, we were working sort of at cross purposes. We would, the US would say that you have to force the Taliban to, you know, sort of make peace with Ashraf Ghani and who was the president then. And we would say that if we pushed the Taliban beyond a point, of course, they had families there, they had, they would come to Pakistan. But welcome to Taliban, Carter was fighting and he was in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan. But if we take them on through kinetic action or any pressures, then the war will shift to Pakistan. Now, this was a perspective that the officials, senior officials of the US executive were not really ready to listen. And it was a bit frustrating because in the first place, the whole global war on terror was not something of Pakistan's making. But we know after a huge price, we won that war that these had prevailed. And now if we were to take on the Taliban on Pakistani soil, that would have meant another war on terror on Pakistani soil. So I think these were very difficult conversations to have here. Okay, so Ambassador Azaz, when we talked about Pakistan's strange relationship with Afghanistan, I mean, obviously being two neighbors, the relationship has been a state of flux for quite some time, not much has changed with the Taliban as a new power in Kabul. There would be many who would argue in Islamabad that diplomacy should reign supreme, we should talk to the Taliban so that these negative alpha elements are not exported into Pakistani territory. The other viewpoint is that military action, maybe within Afghanistan through hot pursuit to try and rid out the alpha elements would be a better strategy. In your view, what is the best way to deal with the Taliban in Kabul? Well, we should stay engaged with the Taliban. We hear that there are different factions from hardliners to pragmatic ones, and we need to deal with all of them. And we have to persuade them that that whipping up in mutual hostility is not in the interest of either country, that TTP should not use Afghan soil against Pakistan. They are murdering and killing innocent people of Pakistan. So I think we have got to stay engaged. What the government probably doesn't want to do now, and I think they are right in taking that decision. They don't want to talk to TTP. They want to talk to a Taliban government because that's the defective government in Kabul, but they don't want to talk to TTP because TTP are simply terrorists and militants, which we cannot accept. And therefore, this is one way. The other is the ideological component. I think Pakistan needs to find ulemas, and especially the ulemas under whom Taliban were trained, and they should be sent to engage with their counterparts in Afghanistan to persuade the ideological leadership of the Taliban. It would be much better for both countries to be peaceful, to engage in commercial and economic interactions, and rather than letting the TTP dominate the agenda between the two countries. There are a number of other areas where we could persuade the Taliban because they also need some kind of economic security. So the regional projects, for instance, are very, very important. And the Taliban could come around to TAPI and to KASA 1000 and other regional projects, which will benefit them too. Unfortunately, what I see is that on three counts, the Taliban are just not relenting. They're not forming an inclusive government, which the international community expects them to do. They are not respecting the right of girls to education. And they're also not allowing militants, they're not stopping the militants, preventing the militants from using their soil for terrorism abroad. So I think recently there was a Moscow format consultation held in which all the regional countries, the neighboring and the near neighbors of Afghanistan were, and they were all sending the resounding message to the Taliban that you need to listen to what the world is saying, and you need to rise up to these expectations that the world has. And if that happens, I'm glad that Pakistan was part of these consultations. Then my sense is that the Taliban would get to recognition of their former recognition of their government. They can also engage with the rest of the world. Maybe grounds can be paved to lift 267 sanctions on them. Maybe the U.S. would unfreeze the assets and so on and so forth. But things must begin first of all with the Taliban honoring the three commitments that I just mentioned. Absolutely. And those three commitments are pretty much non-negotiable. When we talk about the Taliban actually getting into the mainstream, there's this argument of Moscow results that the economy, the more economically strong that you are, the more bargaining power you basically have. Now, when we talk about India and the fact that it's gotten away with murder and Kashmir to a large extent, with the Indian illegal occupation of Jomon Kashmir and revocation of Article 370, there would be those who would argue that had Pakistan been on a stronger footing? I mean, we've had a principal stance at the UN. We've also had a principal stance whenever we've dealt with so many of these western countries to try and highlight the Indian atrocities which are being committed to Kashmir. But had we had a stronger economy, we could have bargained far better. I mean, this is just a school of thought. It's not necessarily a school of thought I subscribe to. But do you believe that a stronger economy gives you more bargaining power and international diplomacy? Oh, yes, absolutely. You know, if your economy is strong, your foreign policy choices expand. And conversely, if your economy is not doing well, your foreign policy choice is shrink. And that's what we have seen. You see, it was the same people's Republic of China until Deng Xiaoping came the amount of relevance that China assumed. It was only after it gained that economic muscle. And the same can be said about India too. Since 1990, India has done well on the economic front. And today you can see that it's the fifth or sixth largest economy. So therefore, I think it makes a lot of difference. But when it comes to Kashmir, I think the people of Pakistan feel rather strongly that the people of Jammu and Kashmir should have been given their right to self determination, like the rest of British India. And this is such a sad story that India has used enormous force to block that right to self determination. Now, the Indians say that since there is a there is an elected assembly, which wants to stay with India. But I think that is a violation for us, the violation of the UN Security Council resolutions, which want a UN administered plebiscite in which people can vote freely. So the people of Pakistan have been attached to the people of Kashmir for centuries. I mean, all their waters come this side, all their markets were on this side. And therefore these age old ties cannot be severed so quickly. So people of Pakistan, no government in Pakistan can ever not support the Kashmir cause, not support the right of self determination of the people of the Indian occupied Kashmir. However, that said, I also believe that there were general attempts made in the past like 4.4 mula, which came close to finding some kind of solution with which both countries would live. But ever since August 5, 2019, when both the government has abrogated the article of their constitution which provided autonomy, article 370 which provided autonomy to the Kashmir state, and they have converted them into two union territories. I think a huge violation of the UN Security Council resolution has occurred because these resolutions had called for no material change in the disputed territory. And now we see that there are other projects like, you know, demographics are being changed by settling non-Kashmiris into the valley. We also see the Limitation Commission destroying the constituencies in such a manner that the occupied Kashmir will not be a Muslim majority area. I think that's something which is underway at the moment. And people of Pakistan and people of Kashmir are naturally quite educated about it. But it's a matter of disappointment for the people of Pakistan that the world is not able to grant that right to the people of Kashmir what became available to most part of the world, parts of the world. And because of the geo-strategic and geopolitical interest that the world has with India, India is not being pushed hard enough to honor the commitments that it itself had made under the UN Security Council resolution to provide that right-to-determination to the people of Kashmir. All right, so Ambassador Zab, let's come to the U.S. Congress now. I mean, obviously the U.S. has the appropriations bill through which development assistance can actually be given to many different developing countries and strategic partners. For that matter, Pakistan is not an exception to that rule. But we saw a lot of, you could say, polarization and divisiveness in the U.S. Congress where there were attempts by Republican, you could say, lawmakers representatives to try and make sure they can bulldoze the appropriations bill as far as extending funds to Pakistan. But it eventually did pass because of the Democrats actually having a hold of it. When we talk about military assistance, you do see quite a few representatives being averse to assistance U.S. assistance to Pakistan. In light of that, how do you see the future trajectory of U.S.-Pakistan relations? President Barack Obama came, he changed gears and he said, all right, we want to engage Pakistan to support economic support, military support, and they came up with what came to be known as KLD, you know, and that was from 2009 to 2014. We were to receive $1.5 billion per year for a period of five years. Of course, the actual amount dispersed was less than that. Nevertheless, that was the time when it was felt by the U.S. that the aid can be an instrument to influence Pakistan's policy. My sense is that even in the U.S. now, this is coming, you know, rather to the fore, that it is not necessary that aid will deliver to you what you want in terms of foreign policy objectives. There's a book by Robert Hathaway, The Leveraged Paradox, and he argues in that that the country which is receiving aid, the leverage that U.S. has on that country is proportional to the will of that country to be leveraged, which means that if a country doesn't want to be leveraged, it will not be leveraged, regardless of the amount of aid you give to them. So I think in Pakistan, there was an expectation that since we were forced into global war on terror, we should be assisted and with economic and military support because we had spent so much money. We wasted like $150 billion of economic losses we had suffered that we had lost 70,000, 80,000 lives. So it was something that Pakistan, frankly, had Pakistan not put in that kind of effort, Al-Qaeda would not have been decimated. It was Pakistan which basically did all the hard work in catching. But once the Al-Qaeda was decimated, Americans shifted the goalpost towards Taliban, and that's a very different story. But yes, coming back to your question, yes, the aid, military aid and economic aid has always been used by the U.S. in different countries as an instrument of their policy to influence the recipient countries. And same was the case in Pakistan. Okay. All right. So let's come back to your book now. Are there any other major takeaways that you feel should actually be not only publicized, but something that could, many people will actually aspire to be diplomats or many people will actually serve as diplomats or actually currently serving as diplomats can actually take away from them? If you look at the epilogue of my book, it's pretty long actually. I deliberately dealt with the questions that I had come across both in the U.S. and in Pakistan and elsewhere. Questions like who makes Pakistan's foreign policy? Is it just the foreign office or somebody else? Why is Pakistan's hostility with India not having a way? Why are Pakistan and Afghanistan harboring such a deep business? Can Pakistan and China become so aligned closely that we can counter together the U.S.-India alignment? And things of this, these are the questions that I had been facing. Why was Osama Bin Laden, for example, found in Pakistan and in poverty level? And these are some of the questions that I'd like to answer in that. And I think epilogue, in my view, is a very critical part of my book because it deals exactly with the questions that I, in fact, whenever I was in the U.S. syntax, I would take notes not of what is to be said and what I heard, but only of the questions being asked to me. And those were exactly the questions that I tried to address in the epilogue. Okay. So there's this view, Ambassador Azaz, that apparently Pakistan should be joining camps. I mean, there are lots of people. I mean, the official stance from the foreign offices that Pakistan is not going to be part of any bloc for that matter. If there are blocs for that matter, because China does not believe in creating blocs. The United States under the Biden administration apparently does. So in light of that, there is this view, which is a minority view, that Pakistan should decrease its reliance on the United States and actually join the China and Russia camps for that matter. I mean, it's participation in the SDO. There would be those who would argue, such as yourself, I believe, that a multi-positive relationship with all different countries all across the world would actually benefit Pakistan to a lot of extent. Given Pakistan's experience with the U.S., which of the two do you think is the correct strategy as far as Pakistan's foreign policy will just take, for example, hypothetically, that we go to Chinese camp and announce that we have nothing to do with the U.S. Will you be willing to forego the $6 billion plus trade that you have with the United States and another $6.5 billion that you have with Europe? Will you be willing to let your people who are in the IT business sever their links with the U.S. technology companies and so on and so forth? I think not. We will not like that. Now, let's hypothetically take up whether we don't want to take up or, you know, we don't want to go to the Chinese camp and we are in the U.S. camp. Can you afford to lose all the leverage that you have built with the Chinese? I mean, China is not only investing in CPAC, which it did at a time when Pakistan was going through the war on terror and nobody, no other country was willing to invest in Pakistan, but Chinese did that. So Chinese are also engaged in multiple other ways to assist Pakistan through palace of payment, but also defense and economic relationship. It is my sense that nobody in his right mind in Pakistan would ever like to sever ties with China. So my sense is, and you rightly guessed my position, that Pakistan should pitch its relations with the U.S. and with China based on its own national economic interests. And that's why I maintain that it is always doable. And, you know, the world is not going through the kind of full war that existed between the United States and USSR. At that time, the world was divided into camps, but today the U.S. and China themselves are engaged in the economic world as well as they have their competition. So my sense is that there is absolutely no benefit to Pakistan if we were to move into the camps that are still not apparent. It's not there. The world is now basing its interests as the main pivot on which they build their foreign policy. Look at India for instance, despite the fact that India has been chosen as a strategic partner of choice by the United States in the Indo-Pacific strategy, India still was dealing with gainfully, actually, with Russia. And therefore, I think every country does that. So why should Pakistan pursue its own national interests? And I would say national economic interests, because that's the real benefit to Pakistan. Former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and author of diplomatic conference, Ambassador Azaz Baudry, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. So that's all that we have from Islamabad today on ThinkTek Hawaii. You can follow us on our social media pages. You can provide us with your feedback. Until next time, take care.