Hillary talks tough in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD, October 21: The Obama administration on Friday intensified pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on Islamist militants destabilising Afghanistan, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a tough public message that extremists have been able to operate in and from Pakistan for too long.
For the second time in two days, Ms. Clinton pressed Pakistani authorities to step up efforts against the Haqqani militant network, which is based in the country's rugged tribal region, and is blamed for attacks both inside Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.
After leading an unusually large and powerful U.S. delegation, including CIA director David Petraeus and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, for four hours of talks with Pakistani officials late Thursday, Ms. Clinton met on Friday with Pakistan's President and Foreign Minister to make the case.
"We should be able to agree that for too long extremists have been able to operate here in Pakistan and from Pakistani soil," she said. "No one who targets innocent civilians, whether they be Pakistanis, Afghans, Americans or anyone else should be tolerated or protected."
The U.S. has grown increasingly impatient with Pakistan's refusal to take military action against the Taliban-linked Haqqani network and its ambivalence, if not hostility, to supporting Afghan attempts to reconcile Taliban fighters into society.
Ms. Clinton made clear that that was no longer acceptable while American officials warned that if Pakistan continued to balk, the U.S. would act unilaterally to end the militant threat.
"Pakistan has a critical role to play in supporting Afghan reconciliation and ending the conflict," Ms. Clinton told reporters at a joint press conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. "We look to Pakistan to take strong steps to deny Afghan insurgents safe havens and to encourage the Taliban to enter negotiations in good faith."
The Haqqani group is considered the greatest threat to American troops in Afghanistan, and U.S. officials have accused Pakistan's military spy agency, the ISI, of providing it with support an allegation denied by Islamabad. Clinton noted that U.S. and Afghan forces had recently launched a successful operation against Haqqani safe havens in Afghanistan and that Pakistan must do the same. On Thursday in the Afghan capital, she said those who allow such safe havens to remain would pay "a very big price."
After the lengthy meeting with Pakistan's prime minister and army and intelligence chiefs on Thursday and Friday's talks with Kahr, Clinton said the U.S. delegation had asked "very specifically for greater cooperation from the Pakistan side to squeeze the Haqqani network and other terrorists because we know that trying to eliminate terrorists and safe havens from one side of the border is not going to work." "It's like that old story- you can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your eighbours," she said. (Agencies)


2011-10-21



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