Pakistan has urged the American media to avoid playing the "blame game", saying it's record in combating terrorism speaks for itself.
"We have killed or captured more than 680 foreign al Qaeda terrorists. We have banned all organisations that were suspected of involvement in terrorism", Mansoor Suhail, press minister at the Pakistan mission to the United Nations said in a letter published in The New York Times on Sunday.
The letter was in response to a recent editorial in which the newspaper proposed that Pakistan, among other steps, seal it's "porous border" with Afghanistan, making it much harder for the Taliban to infiltrate into that country the fighters killing American, Nato and Afghan soldiers.
"The Taliban insurgency is mainly within Afghanistan. Pakistan has deployed 90,000 troops three times as many as fielded in Afghanistan" to inter interdict-Qaeda and Taliban movement-across the border," Suhail said in his rejoinder. "But," he added, "we host 2.6 million Afghan refugees, some sympathetic to be Taliban.
"Through a comprehensive military, political and economic strategy, Pakistan is succeeding in the endeavour to end support for the Taliban in our frontier regions. Exerting undue pressure on Pakistan to 'do more' is unnecessary and likely to be counterproductive."
The press minister took issues with the Times for ignoring Pakistan's progress in political, social and economic fields. "You do not mention Pakistan s larger reality: a democratic country, regular elections, a free press, empowered women and minorities, a vibrant economy (growing at 7 percent) that has doubled output and incomes over five years, significant and profitable foreign investment and an overwhelmingly moderate and tolerant, even if conservative, Muslim population," the letter said.
"Pakistan joined the coalition to fight terrorism because of its own conviction and vital national interest," Suhail went on to say. "The American media should be doing more to support Pakistan's economic and social success, rather than playing the blame game."