Washington, Oct 7 : The United States wants to make Islamabad realise that a peaceful approach towards India would be in everybody’s interests, and would help Pakistan actually develop, President Barack Obama has said.

“They [Pakistani officials] see their security interests threatened by an independent Afghanistan in part because they think it will ally itself to India, and Pakistan still considers India their mortal enemy,” Obama said during a press conference at the White House.

“Part of what we want to do is actually get Pakistan to realise that a peaceful approach towards India would be in everybody’s interests, and would help Pakistan actually develop, because one of the biggest problems we have in Pakistan right now is poverty, illiteracy, a lack of development, civil institutions that aren’t strong enough to deliver for the Pakistani people. And in that environment you’ve seen extremism grow,” he added.

Obama pointed out that growing militancy in Pakistan not only threatens US efforts in Afghanistan, but also the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people.

“So trying to get that reorientation is something that we’re continuing to work on; it’s not easy,” he added.

Obama also said Pakistanis have hedged their bets, in terms of what Afghanistan would look like, and that part of hedging their bets is having “interactions with some of the unsavory characters who they think might end up regaining power in Afghanistan after coalition forces have left.”

“What we’ve tried to persuade Pakistan of is that it is in their interest to have a stable Afghanistan; that they should not be feeling threatened by a stable, independent Afghanistan,” he stated.

The president said that the US has tried to get conversations between Afghans and Pakistans going more effectively than they have been in the past, but that Washington still has got more work to do in this regard.

“And there is no doubt that there is some connections that the Pakistani military and intelligence services have with certain individuals that we find troubling. And I’ve said that publicly, and I’ve said it privately to Pakistani officials as well,” he added. (ANI)