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Friday, January 07, 2011
US, Pakistan stumble in talks over drones
WASHINGTON: A US offer to supply Pakistan with its own fleet of surveillance drone aircraft delighted Islamabad a year ago but now threatens to turn into another source of friction between the two countries. The offer was made by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates during a trip to Islamabad in January 2010 but talks failed to gain traction, with Pakistan privately voicing concern about what it said were exorbitant prices and a snail-pace delivery timeline. “The negotiations were delayed because of two issues. One is the delivery timeframe, the other is the price,” the Pakistani official said. Gates offered Pakistan 12 Shadow drones, manufactured by AAI Corporation, a unit of Textron Systems. They were not the weaponised versions being used by the CIA to track and kill al Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan but were used strictly for surveillance and intelligence gathering. A senior Pakistani security official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity, “We require primarily attack capability, not just surveillance. They should enhance our attack capability. Why are they providing us a capability which we already have?” The disagreement comes at a delicate moment in US relations with Pakistan when Washington wants Islamabad to do more to drive Taliban from sanctuaries used as launchpads for attacks on the US led forces in Afghanistan. “At present we are in the early stages of defining the Pakistan-specific requirements,” said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Shavers, a spokesman at the US military’s Office of the Defence Representative-Pakistan. While Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Robbins, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said there was “no set timeline from the start of discussions to a final decision”. reuters
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk