Reaffirming Washington's co-operation in economic development of tribal areas, a senior US official has noted the Pakistani government appears to be heading for anti-terror strategy that aims at engaging the tribesmen, but involves no negotiations with terrorist elements.
US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher also welcomed the Pakistani government leaders' recent meetings with the Afghan officials. "I think we all recognise, including the Pakistani government that for both Pakistan and Afghanistan to be safe, we need to deal with these people on both the Pakistani and the Afghan side of the border. And in some ways it boils down to the same issues on both sides. You're not going to stop the suicide bombings and the terrorist attacks until you get real control at the local level."
Boucher told a briefing on Afghanistan reconstruction that the real control of the border territory requires military, police, good governance and support of the villagers and tribesmen.
He said that some of the militant activity in Afghanistan gets support from terrorist elements from across the border. Continuing on the anti-terror policy, Boucher said: "And that is being done in Afghanistan in certain ways, it's being done by the Government of Pakistan now, especially the new civilian government is looking at how to do that, how to extend security control, governance, and economic development into the tribal areas. And we're working with them, we're talking to them, we want to support that. We're supporting a security development plan to develop the proper security forces to do that."
The United States, he said, is supporting Pakistan's sustainable development plan to bring economic opportunity into the tribal areas so that these areas are transformed into stable parts of Pakistan "in a way that stops the terrorists from operating there."
Asked about reports regarding current the status of the new government's approach, Boucher said: "We see different reports. I would say we haven't seen many reports of anything much happening there in terms of negotiations in recent days or weeks. The politicians have said they want to negotiate with tribes, not with terrorists. And they've tried to make that point that you do need to talk to the tribes to get the tribes on your side, but they do not want to have negotiations with terrorists that result in people getting released and more freedom of movement or action on the side of the militants. So that seems to be the direction policy is heading, but I don't think I can give you a definitive status at this point."
"We are not seeing much of the wrong kind of activity at this moment," he said in response to another question, adding it was too early to give a real judgement at this point. Appreciating Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and other senior officials' meetings with the Afghan officials in Kabul, Boucher saw a "real desire to work with each other across the border in a whole variety of ways."