The Russian president Putin hit the nail on the head when he recently told Imran Khan that in the past Pakistani rulers were not serious enough to mend fences with Moscow and they had shown a high degree of non-seriousness in this matter. Truer words were never spoken.
There is no gainsaying the fact after creation of Pakistan, to be more precise, after 1948, our successive rulers had been more favourably inclined towards Washington. The height of their blind allegiance to the US can be gleaned from the fact that Ayub Khan handed over an airbase near Peshawar to the Americans which the latter used for reconnaissance flights by an American U-2 spy plane for spying over the Soviet Union and taking photographs of the Russian military installations. The soviets one day shot it down and captured its pilot alive along with cameras. During 1950s Pakistan was in the vanguard of the American Cold War against Moscow and had become a member of many military pacts masterminded by Washington, much to the chagrin of Moscow. Pakistan also went the whole hog in the military struggle of the Afghan mujahideen against the soviet forces in Afghanistan which was spearheaded and funded by the US.
It is thought that had Pakistan adopted a neutral foreign policy after it came into being in 1947 and not placed all its eggs in the American basket Moscow would not have openly sided with India in the 1971 Indo-Pak war which resulted in the break-up of Pakistan.
It is about time the PM launches an intense diplomatic effort for clearing the misunderstandings from the hearts of Russian people as well as their government against Pakistan.
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