AGL 38.54 Increased By ▲ 0.97 (2.58%)
AIRLINK 129.50 Decreased By ▼ -3.00 (-2.26%)
BOP 5.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.53%)
CNERGY 3.86 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (2.39%)
DCL 8.73 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.58%)
DFML 41.76 Increased By ▲ 0.76 (1.85%)
DGKC 88.30 Decreased By ▼ -1.86 (-2.06%)
FCCL 35.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.23%)
FFBL 67.35 Increased By ▲ 0.85 (1.28%)
FFL 10.61 Increased By ▲ 0.46 (4.53%)
HUBC 108.76 Increased By ▲ 2.36 (2.22%)
HUMNL 14.66 Increased By ▲ 1.26 (9.4%)
KEL 4.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-2.26%)
KOSM 6.95 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (1.46%)
MLCF 41.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.15 (-0.36%)
NBP 59.60 Increased By ▲ 1.02 (1.74%)
OGDC 183.00 Increased By ▲ 1.75 (0.97%)
PAEL 26.25 Increased By ▲ 0.55 (2.14%)
PIBTL 5.97 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (2.4%)
PPL 146.70 Decreased By ▼ -1.70 (-1.15%)
PRL 23.61 Increased By ▲ 0.39 (1.68%)
PTC 16.56 Increased By ▲ 1.32 (8.66%)
SEARL 68.30 Decreased By ▼ -0.49 (-0.71%)
TELE 7.23 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.14%)
TOMCL 35.95 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.14%)
TPLP 7.85 Increased By ▲ 0.45 (6.08%)
TREET 14.20 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.28%)
TRG 50.45 Decreased By ▼ -0.40 (-0.79%)
UNITY 26.75 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (1.33%)
WTL 1.21 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 9,806 Increased By 37.8 (0.39%)
BR30 29,678 Increased By 278.1 (0.95%)
KSE100 92,304 Increased By 366.3 (0.4%)
KSE30 28,840 Increased By 96.6 (0.34%)

A senior US senator said on Tuesday Pakistan should prove it is committed to fighting militancy before it receives more US aid and called the contribution by Nato allies to the war in Afghanistan pitiful. Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the US Senates armed services committee, said the United States should not rely on Pakistan for help in the Afghan war.
"I dont have a lot of confidence that the Pakistani government has the will or the capability to take on the violence," the Democrat told reporters in Washington. Levin spoke the day after guerrillas attacked a police academy in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, killing eight cadets, in the latest sign of the rising threat of Islamist militancy in the nuclear-armed nation.
He said Pakistans government had not switched its security priorities from a potential external threat, posed by India, to the internal threat posed by the militants. Levins committee chairmanship and three decades as a senator give him considerable influence in Congress, which would have to approve an increase in aid to Pakistan.
He suggested more aid should flow only when Pakistan has demonstrated it wants to tackle militancy for the sake of its own security rather than due to pressure from Washington. "If I thought we could buy stability, I would buy it," he said. "But I dont think its effective unless the recipient of the support sees where the real threat is to them."
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said aid could be effective if Pakistan had confidence that Washington was interested in a long-term partnership and the money could be tracked. "There needs to be an audit trail, an understanding of where its going and what its doing, and I think were all aboard for that," Mullen said at a meeting of defence chiefs from central and south Asia in Washington.
"The message thats important that Ive learned is... sending the signal were not going to leave them." US officials say militancy in Pakistan also threatens Afghanistan and the United States, as militants exploit safe havens in Pakistani border areas to launch raids into Afghanistan and plot attacks on targets further afield.
"Natos performance here is pitiful - its nothing short of pitiful," he said. "Natos got to understand this cannot just be an American and an Afghan deal, that theres got to be a major Nato component of it." Many Nato allies say they have already sent significant numbers of troops and have stressed that efforts to stabilise Afghanistan are about more than just military operations.

Copyright Reuters, 2009

Comments

Comments are closed.