The United States on Sunday vowed to work towards building trust and wide-ranging partnership with Pakistan, with its top diplomat and military commander for the region saying the US focus under the new strategy is to help Pakistani institutions develop necessary capability to dismantle al Qaeda militants on its side of the Afghan border.
US special representative for the region, Richard Holbrooke and chief of the Central Command General David Petraeus said US Pakistan and Afghanistan will work trilaterally to overcome the "trust deficit" in some aspects of the relationship that has seen "ups and downs" in the past.
Both officials, speaking on CNN on the prospects of success against al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistan border under the new US plan, also made it clear that the US has no intention to carry out any ground operations against militants that may be hiding on the Pakistani soil.
Hollbrooke said the United States has started a new trilateral process of the leaders of the two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan coming to United States, as "they came in late February to advise us on the strategic review."
"Now we are planning a new session for early May which would be attended by me, CIA Chief Leon Panetta, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, General Petraeus and Secretary Defence Bob Gates. "In all of these issues, we have to break down to issues that you have referred to, and what the Pakistani Foreign Minister (Shah Mahmood Qureshi) himself called the trust deficit," he added.
The relationship between Pakistan and the United States, he noted, is "immensely complicated and it is not quite where it should be." "And the new focus on Pakistan and what General Petraeus just referred is Afghanistan-Pakistan is designed to emphasise the fact that as we move forward, we need to focus as much on Pakistan but with one key caveat. "As the foreign minister of Pakistan has said publicly and repeatedly there cannot be American combat troops on the ground in western Pakistan.
So when you are talking about fighting the fire on the other side of the (Afghan) border, we are constrained in going after the people on that side of the border even though they are the ones to a large extent planning further attacks.
"This is the challenge of a uniquely difficult problem. But we are recommitted to it. General Petraeus and I, are shoulder to shoulder in this effort."
For his part, Petraeus also caveated any possibility of going after al Qaeda on the Pakistani side, saying "there is no intention for us to be conducting operations on the ground and there is every intention by Pakistani military and their other forces, to conduct these operations."
He acknowledged the Pakistani militarys recent operations against militants in Bajaur tribal area and other places and renewed the United States pledge to help the entire civilian government to develop ability to deal with the challenges in the rugged border region.
"As a very proud country, it has existing institutions. Our job is to enable these institutions to help them develop the kinds of counterinsurgency capabilities that are needed. And to help their entire government with (the help) that allows them to conduct comprehensive effort that is necessary, well beyond the military effort. But one that looks at the displaced citizens; that tries to foster local economic development."
Petraeus also cited the establishment of a joint co-ordination center across the Khyber Pass and said it is important that the co-ordination is trilateral, engaging Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. Holbrooke recognised the fact that Pakistan has been a victim with terrorists killing its popular two time prime minister Benzir Bhutto.
Comments
Comments are closed.