News
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Obama discusses US goals in Pak-Afghan region
WASHINGTON: Presiden Barack Obama who plans to begin a drawdown of American forces from the Afghan soil this summer, discussed ways on achieving US goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan with his top security and foreign policy advisers.
“The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing our goals for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011, goals and objectives and how we are going to meet those,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
Obama received an update on the “situation on the ground in Afghanistan, both from a counter terrorism perspective as well as the security situation,” the spokesman said.
This week, President Obama told Americans in the annual State of the Union address that as a result of anti-militant actions, fewer Afghans are living under the Taliban control and that the al Qaeda sanctuaries along Pakistan-Afghanistan border are now shrinking.
“I think the assessment of where we are security-wise is not a lot different than when you heard the president in here during the AfPak review,” Gibbs told reporters at the daily briefing.
The Obama administration has not yet specified any size of US forces pullout from Afghanistan planned for July this year and Gibbs stuck to that policy at the briefing.
“I would point you back to, again, what the president has said repeatedly and reiterated in the State of the Union just on Tuesday,” he said. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk