News Analysis By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD: Shaukat Aziz, Pakistani Finance Minister, spoke about the need for forgetting the past and looking towards the future, while Ashraf Ghani, Afghan Finance Minister and a former World Bank official, promised to deliver a fair playing field to Pakistani banks seeking to set up operations in his country.

But the two ministers carefully avoided delivering direct answers to questions surrounding the controversial role of Anwarul Haq Ahady, Afghanistan's central bank governor, who has fast emerged as the most significant foe for Pakistan in Kabul other than the ranks of the Northern Alliance.

Mr Ahady, son-in-law of Pir Sayyed Gillani, a prominent Afghan Mujahideen leader, has triggered widespread dismay across Pakistan's official and security circles for delivering a provocative speech full of vitriol against Islamabad last month, which subsequently prompted protesters in Kabul to attack the Pakistani embassy and burn the Pakistani flag.

While senior Afghan officials have lately claimed that Mr Ahady was nowhere near Pakistan's embassy, officials in Islamabad quote specific information conveyed back to the Foreign Office by Rustam Shah Mohmand, Pakistan's ambassador to Kabul.

In at least one communication, Mr Mohmand specifically named Mr Ahady as the main instigator of the attack, officials at the Foreign Office said. Mr Ahady's conduct has also surprised Pakistan officials, as his close relationship to Pir Gillani's family, which was a major beneficiary of funds funneled through Pakistan in the 80s, was considered the assurance to see Kabul's new central bank remain friendly towards Islamabad.

The embassy attack, however, has prompted senior officials in Islamabad to see Ahady as a major thorn in bilateral ties, perhaps as significant a nuisance as members of the Northern Alliance.

The extent of Pakistan's anxieties can best be judged from the views of senior officials in background interviews, who revealed that in the days after the attack on Pakistan's embassy, the question of responding to the provocation from Mr Ahady emerged as a serious issue for the Pakistani establishment.

Officials at the Foreign Office said perhaps at no other time in its history has Pakistan witnessed at least a section of its official opinion arguing in favor of the central bank governor of another country being declared a 'persona non grata' (PNG). "Ultimately, the view which prevailed was that in declaring Ahady a PNG, it would be impossible for Pakistan to try moving beyond the immediate fallout from the embassy attack," said one senior official who requested anonymity.

Yet in the long term, senior Pakistani officials warned that the presence of Mr Ahady as the Afghan central bank governor, would continue to undermine prospects for far reaching economic ties, despite the expectations from Mr Aziz and Mr Ghani.

"This issue is much too big to be easily shoved under the carpet," said another official from a powerful ministry outside the Foreign Office. "If the target would have been a country such as the United States, the Americans would have refused to do further business till such time that the official was removed. Pakistan is vulnerable and unable to take such a stand, but there would hardly be even the first step towards normal business as long as Ahady remains the governor," added the official.