ISLAMABAD: It began with hushed conversations in hotels dotted around Asia,and resulted in a nearly unthinkable book: “Spy Chronicles”, a secretcollaboration by former intelligence chiefs of India and Pakistan that hascaused uproar in Islamabad.
The book, published last month, was co-authored by retired General AsadDurrani, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) between 1990and 1992, and his counterpart A S Dulat, who led India’s Research andAnalysis Wing (RAW) from 1999-2000.
They are the two most powerful intelligence agencies in the neighbouringcountries, who have been fierce adversaries since Partition in 1947.
“The CIA and the KGB had lines of communication, even at the height of theCold War. But ISI and RAW don’t,” Indian journalist Aditya Sinha, whofacilitated the conversations, told AFP.
The project, which he said was conducted covertly, took two and a halfyears to complete.
It required four marathon sessions in neutral territory – Istanbul, Bangkokand Kathmandu – organised on the sidelines of meetings between Indian andPakistani officials seeking to hold dialogue.
“We did not wear overcoats or glasses. But the two chiefs have a lifetimehabit of being discreet,” Sinha said.
“We met in each other’s hotel rooms. In (Kathmandu), we found a corner of alobby. If somebody came near our corner, everybody would stop talking.”
Among the topics discussed are longstanding allegations that Pakistan usesproxies in India and Afghanistan, such as the Afghan Taliban and theHaqqani network, and provides them safe haven.
The US has repeatedly demanded that Islamabad take action againstmilitancy. In the book, Durrani asserts that – if the fighters are indeedin Pakistan – doing so would be a “disaster”.
“(By) going against them, we would not only turn some more of our ownpeople against us but also these groups who have never harmed us,” hewrites.
Durrani, who was no longer Pakistan’s top spy in 2011 when Osama bin Ladenwas killed in a US raid in the military town of Abbottabad, also suggeststhat Islamabad probably knew where the Al Qaeda leader was hiding – thoughhe provides no smoking gun.
“Cooperating with the US to eliminate a person regarded by many in Pakistanas a ‘hero’ could have embarrassed the government,” he writes.