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Wednesday, August 17, 2011
‘No choice’ but to keep ties with Pakistan: US
WASHINGTON: The United States has no choice but to keep up its alliance with Pakistan despite concerns over Islamabad’s ties to terrorists, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday. Panetta, speaking to an audience of military officers at the National Defence University, he said that relations with Pakistan were difficult because ‘elements of the government’ had links with the Haqqani network, which is staging attacks on US-led troops in Afghanistan, and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), blamed for orchestrating attacks in India. “What makes this complicated is that they have relationships with the Haqqanis, and the Haqqani tribe are attacking our forces in Afghanistan,” he said at the Washington institution, which is tasked with providing training in national and international security for US and foreign officials. “It’s pretty clear that there’s a relationship there,” said Panetta, who appeared along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the event. The Pakistanis were also sometimes withholding visas for some US embassy personnel assigned to the country, he added. “And yet there is no choice but to maintain a relationship with Pakistan. Why? Because we’re fighting a war there. “They (Pakistanis) do represent an important force in that region. Because they do happen to be a nuclear power that has nuclear weapons and we have to be concerned about what happens with those nuclear weapons.” He added that there were going to be “ups and downs” in the relationship with Pakistan. Asked about reports that Islamabad likely allowed Chinese engineers to examine a US helicopter that crash landed during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May, the US defence chief declined to confirm or deny the accounts. “I’m not going to comment because it does relate to classified intelligence,” Panetta said. afp
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk