US rejects Karzai's outburst on Pakistan

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US rejects Karzai's outburst on Pakistan

Published: July 31, 2010


WASHINGTON – Rejecting an Afghan demand that the US strike at the militant safe havens in Pakistan, a State Department spokesman has said that the US has no plans of sending its combat troops across the Pak-Afghan border and that Washington and Islamabad were cooperating to accomplish the objective.

“We are working with Pakistan to eliminate the safe havens which are a threat to Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told the reporters on Thursday, at a news briefing. He was replying to a question regarding President Hamid Karzai’s statement that called on the international community, particularly the US, to hit the sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

“We have no plans to send US combat forces to Pakistan,” he added.
Stating that the elimination of safe havens was central to President Barack Obama’s strategy unveiled last December, Crowley said, “You have the United States and the international community working with Afghanistan on one side of the border, and you do have Pakistan taking aggressive action on the other side of the border. And our message to Pakistan is that, that their offensive needs to continue.”

The Obama Administration expressed satisfaction over the “aggressive action” taken by the Pakistan Army against the militants in the tribal regions of the country. About the poor image of the United States in Pakistan as reflected in a recent American poll, Crowley said that the Obama administration had worked hard in the recent months to try to improve its relationship with Pakistan.

“I think we recognize that this was not going to occur overnight. We have tried to communicate forcefully to not only the government, but also to the people directly, that the United States is committed to the future of Pakistan. We are, in fact, their partners.” The spokesman further added, “I think we’re not surprised that the people will want to see fruits of this partnership; that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. It goes back to what the Secretary (of State Hillary Clinton) announced in Islamabad last week - concrete projects - on energy, on health and on education that will create tangible results so the people of Pakistan can see it. And when they see it, then we would expect to see those poll numbers prospectively improve.”

As a result of those efforts, Crowley said that after Mrs. Clinton’s recent trip to Pakistan there has been a change in tone. “But we understand that this is a long-term proposition which we take seriously and feel, is vitally important to demonstrate to the people of Pakistan that the United States is genuinely interested in a different long-term relationship with the country,” he added.
The United States, he added, was working hard to remove the trust deficit.

“This is a two-way street. The people of Pakistan have questions and concerns about the nature of our relationship, and likewise, as we’ve seen in recent days, there have been questions raised, and we are involved in a respectful dialogue with the government and the people of Pakistan. So we’ve seen already a change in tone coming out of the strategic dialogue, high-level meetings that we have had in Washington, earlier this year, and the meetings that we had in Islamabad last week, he said.

“We do think that over time, people will begin to understand and see that there’s a genuine and mutual respect and benefit for this relationship. And as people are able to see those benefits firsthand, then we would expect to see an improvement in not only the tone, but also the substance of our relationship. But we didn’t expect this to change overnight. And we are going to continue to work hard to help the people understand that there has been a fundamental shift by the United States and a fundamental shift by Pakistan in the nature of our relationship,” Crowley stated.

The United States, he said, had demonstrated its commitment to the civilian government in Pakistan over the past couple of years. “And we understand that going back several years, the commitment to the civilian government in Pakistan by the United States has been uneven. So this is part and parcel of improving the relationship with Pakistan. Our investments in Pakistan are geared towards helping that government build its capacity and deliver effective services to its people. We’re committed to helping Pakistan improve the - its economy, including the economy in the tribal areas, and the frontier areas where we are concerned about the presence of extremist elements and safe havens that affect the security of Pakistan and the security of the United States,” the spokesman said.

“So, it’s - ultimately, we’re trying to both improve relations with Pakistan and the United States, but we’re trying to help Pakistan improve relations between its own population and its own government.”

Meanwhile, Indian journalists kept pressing the issue of the leaked US military reports about ISI’s links with the Taliban. “Our concerns about the ISI and its contacts with some of these elements has been well known,”
Crowley said. “It has been a part of our conversation with Pakistan related stories for some time. Pakistan itself has commented publicly about this.
“We want to see that the aggressive action continues. Where we have concerns about ongoing contacts, we will not hesitate to raise them with Pakistan,” Crowley said.

“Ultimately, as we seek a military and political solution to this challenge, it will take the leadership of Afghanistan, as was outlined last week in the Kabul conference. But Pakistan will have to play a role in this, as will other countries in the region,” he noted.

“We think that while there might be granularity in some of the material that has been released, and again we emphasize that we think this release has done damage to our national security, there’s no startling revelations in these documents,” he said. “Pakistan’s relationship with the elements that morphed into the Taliban go back to the Soviet occupation were very well known. They’re known to the United States, they’re known to India, and they’re known to Afghanistan,” Crowley said.

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