NEW YORK, Feb 22 (APP): Imran Khan, leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, on Sunday backed the Swat peace arrangement, stressing that political dialogue and not the use of force is the long-term answer to the Taliban issue.

Speaking on CNN, the cricketer-turned politician urged the US President Barack Obama’s administration to realize that winning over the Pushtun population is essential and argued that the real threat has always been al-Qaeda and not the Taliban.

He said the Obama Administration should not rely heavily on the use of military force because that would be a repetition of the former Bush administration’s flawed and directionless Afghan policy.

“What I am hoping from Obama is that he will, somewhere along the line, realize, as the British have, that this war is not an option in Afghanistan, they have to understand the psyche of the people, their history,” he said on CNN’s GPs prpgramme with Fareed Zakaria.

He opposed the drone attacks on Pakistani territory, terming them counterproductive. Such measures, he said, radicalize the people and shrink the space for moderates.

“There has to be a change of strategy, there is no military solution to this,” he said, citing the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan despite the fact that they killed a million people in that country.

Imran Khan said if the war goes in Afghanistan, Pakistan will continue to suffer from its blowback effect.

“The Americans should have isolated al-Qaeda from the Taliban.

The Taliban had nothing to do with terrorism. Yes, they were fundamentalists. But they were not terrorists,” he said, arguing that the US attacks against the Taliban and then not being able to deliver on the promises of good governance system, brought things to the current mess in Afghanistan.

‘”The only way forward is dialogue, which is what (Afghan President) Hamid Karzai is finally saying. You have to start talking to the Taliban.”