News
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Dialogue with Pakistan on despite ‘challenges’: US
* State Dept says Pak-US working groups meeting regularly but no dates have been set for plenary session of the dialogue
WASHINGTON: Despite challenges in the relationship, the US and Pakistani working groups continue to meet regularly under the strategic dialogue but no dates have been set for plenary session of the dialogue, the State Department said.
“I don’t believe there’s any date for the next plenary session of the strategic dialogue. It has yet to be scheduled. That said, we have high-level engagement with Pakistan, as well as the substantive working groups continue to meet as well,” State Department’s deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
He spoke amid reports that claimed that the next round of the strategic dialogue between Washington and Islamabad had been postponed indefinitely, in the backdrop of strains that emerged in the bilateral relationship after the US unilateral action against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2.
The spokesman asserted continuation of working groups’ meetings by citing the upcoming July 5 meeting, led by US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, William Brownfield, with his Pakistani counterparts in Islamabad.
The Strategic Dialogue Working Group meeting on counter-terrorism and law enforcement is one of the several groups that meet under the strategic partnership to advance bilateral cooperation in wide-ranging fields. “So while there has been no date set yet for the plenary, the working groups do continue to meet on a regular basis.”
When pressed if the plenary session of the strategic dialogue has not been scheduled due to purely scheduling issue or there were some political considerations, the spokesman responded, “I think it’s scheduling issues. I think the working groups, as I said, continue to meet, but trying to do something at the plenary level is a bit more difficult. You talked about political, and again, I’m not going to sugarcoat the fact that we’ve had some pretty serious challenges in the - in our bilateral relationship, but the strategic dialogue continues.”
The spokesman also referred to visits by senior US officials, including Secretary of State and CIA Chief, to Pakistan to address some of the issues following the Abbottabad raid.
The American officials, he said, visited “to address some of these issues, difficult issues, but also to say that we are committed to working with Pakistan in a constructive way on counter-terrorism. Pakistan, as we’ve said many, many times, is touched by – in a significant, profound way – the threat of terrorism. They’ve lost a lot of people to terrorism in Pakistan.”
On recent resumption of Pakistan-India dialogue, Toner said it is a very “constructive” step. “We think it’s important that that continue, and we want to see cooperation on many fronts, including counter-terrorism, between the two countries.” appCourtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk