Thank you, Mr. Bachand, for your question. I am going to begin by answering your last question.
I wasn’t there for that exchange with Mr. Musharraf, but I read the report. This question was very emotional for him, since it affects his country deeply. I think that his thinking was rather emotional, since he said that Pakistan had lost over 800 soldiers in the conflict, particularly on the border.
Addressing that issue of the border itself, this Durand Line, or Durant Line, as it's sometimes called, is not a new problem for Pakistan and Afghanistan. This goes back, literally, for centuries. It's one that is aggravated by the terrain itself, as I understand it.
Although no one NATO country is tasked with dealing with the issue of the border, increasingly there's a great deal of focus on how we can assist Pakistan in their efforts to control the movement, particularly of insurgents.
I think Canada has a great deal of expertise we can offer. I specifically offered our assistance to the Prime Minister when I met with him in Halifax. He was speaking at that time about more aerial surveillance and more patrols.
They have a huge number of soldiers there now. But in proportion to the vast size of the task and the type of terrain, there is no easy solution, other than increased concentration; the use of communication; and further satellite phones, because they can't often get reception between various checkpoints. I would suggest that there can be other innovative ways that don't include land mines but might include blockades that would effectively prevent passage at some of the known areas where there is a flow of individuals. We're certainly working with other countries, other NATO allies, and the Pakistani government, to try to close off that flow of individuals into Afghanistan.
There is the political dynamic as well. As I said, Afghanistan doesn't really recognize where that border begins and ends.
On your question about the Pakistani secret service, this, again, is a thorny issue, which I've heard President Musharraf try to address. He has indicated that they are in fact former secret service.
Those are members of the former secret service, not the current one who took part in those activities.
He has also acknowledged that the insurgency may be assisted by some of those individuals. He has not acknowledged the identity of these people, which I think is where we perhaps need to press him more, or suggested how we stop them and in fact arrest them, if that's possible.
I have not personally heard, and perhaps Minister O'Connor is the more appropriate one to question, of any direct evidence that would link the existing secret service—or any government agency in Pakistan, for that matter—to the insurgency. Musharraf denies this. NATO and other countries have been watching this closely and pressing him on the subject matter, but to my knowledge, there has been no evidence of this thus far.
I can tell you that through our high commissioner in Islamabad and the embassy in Kabul, we are constantly monitoring and on the lookout for any such evidence that Pakistan is officially, in any government capacity, involved in insurgency.