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During an extremely frank dialogue:
Clinton steps up pressure on Pakistan over militants
AFGHANISTAN: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday held
"extremely frank" talks with Pakistan aimed at stepping up pressure on
Islamabad to dismantle Taliban safe havens on its soil.
Accompanied by CIA director David Petraeus and top US military
officer Martin Dempsey, Clinton met for four hours with Pakistan's
senior military and civilian leaders at Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani's residence in Islamabad.
The Pakistani side included Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani,
Inter-Services Intelligence chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Foreign Minister
Hina Rabbani Khar and Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh.
"It was extremely frank, the discussion was very detailed," a US
State Department official told reporters, hinting at the tough tone
Clinton set when she announced her visit to Pakistan following her
stopover in Kabul.
"We intend to push the Pakistanis very hard as to what they are
willing and able to do with us... to remove the safe havens and the
continuing threats across the border to Afghans," Clinton said at talks
with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
She warned militants that "we are going to seek you in your safe
havens" on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border and confirmed a US
operation against the hardline Haqqani network it blames for some of the
worst war attacks.
"There was a major military operation inside Afghanistan in recent
days that has been rounding up and eliminating Haqqani operatives on
this side of the border," Clinton told reporters at Karzai's palace.
Policy makers in Islamabad disagree with US strategy, believing that
military operations offer limited gains and that now is the time to
concentrate on a comprehensive reconciliation ahead of a NATO withdrawal
in 2014.
Pakistani-US relations have dramatically deteriorated this year over
the May 2 American raid that killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad and
accusations over a US embassy siege in Kabul last month that dragged on
for 19 hours.
Dempsey's predecessor Admiral Mike Mullen called the Haqqani network
the "veritable arm" of Pakistan's ISI and accused its spies of being
involved in the siege.
US commanders say the Haqqanis are their most potent enemy in eastern
Afghanistan and increasingly capable of attacking in Kabul.
But in what Pakistanis are likely to interpret as a contradiction,
Clinton said her talks will focus on "how to increase pressure on the
safe havens" while urging the country to support efforts at
negotiations.
"We believe that they can play either a constructive or a destructive
role in helping to bring into talks those with whom the Afghans
themselves must sit across the table and hammer out a negotiated
settlement," she said.
Gilani meanwhile urged Clinton to "give peace a chance" in the
decade-long war in Afghanistan after reconciliation efforts with the
Taliban swerved off course with the recent killing of Afghan chief
negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani. AFP |
