Saudi says Pakistan can survive Taliban

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An influential member of the Saudi royal family, who headed the country’s intelligence service for 25 years, said Monday that Pakistan can survive the Taliban threat provided the military remains intact.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, former ambassador to Washington, also called for the speedy withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, saying that they are “not welcome” there. He did not specify a deadline.

In addition, Prince Turki said the stigma of Sept. 11, in which 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis, “will be with us forever.”

The prince, who oversaw funding that helped create the Taliban two decades ago during the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, downplayed concerns about Pakistan’s stability despite Taliban advances close to the Pakistani capital and the fact that the country’s nuclear weapons are scattered across its territory, which makes it difficult to guard them.

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“As long as the armed forces are intact, the state is not going to be at risk,” Prince Turki told editors and reporters of The Washington Times.

He criticized the Pakistani government, suggesting it had not found a proper way of dealing with the Taliban, which he said was not a monolithic organization. He said the army did not want to intervene in politics but suggested that there could be a coup if the civilian government did not improve its performance.

“I’m sure that someone like [Army chief General Ashfaq] Kiyani, who is unwilling to play a more political role than he is doing now, doesn’t want to interfere in the politics of the situation,” Prince Turki said. He warned, however, that “the politicians in Pakistan - as everywhere - should get their act together and not lead to a situation where it could require someone like General Kiyani to intervene.”

Pakistan’s military leaders have repeatedly staged coups when they have decided that the elected government did not serve the nation’s interests. The current government follows the military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in 1999 and stepped down in the face of widespread public opposition last year.

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accused President Asif Ali Zardari’s government of abdicating to the Taliban. She was referring to a truce finalized this month that gave Taliban fighters control of a scenic valley just 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad, after two years of fighting. In recent days, Taliban militants have moved even closer, to within 60 miles of the capital.

“Why are we so concerned about this? One of the reasons is nuclear weapons,” she told a House Appropriations subcommittee Thursday when asked about the truce. “We spend a lot of time worrying about Iran. Pakistan already has them, and they are widely dispersed in the country - they are not at a central location.”

Prince Turki also criticized the harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA during the Bush administration that have sparked controversy because of recently declassified memos authorizing those techniques at the time.

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