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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Engagement is only way forward with Pakistan: Clinton* US secretary of state says on-again, off-again ties with Pakistan over past decades has been to US detriment
WASHINGTON: United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an appearance before a key Congressional panel, said that “a combination of civilian and military engagement with Pakistan provides a way forward in the US relations”.
“The US’ on-again, off-again relationship with Pakistan over the past several decades has been to Washington’s detriment,” Clinton said while laying emphasis on pursuing stable bilateral ties between the two countries.
“I do think it is fair to say that our on-again, off-again relationship going back 30, 40 years has been to our detriment,” she reminded members of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs amid a lingering row over the status of a CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, who is under detention since killing two Pakistanis in Lahore in January this year.
“There’s nothing easy about this. And striking the right balance is a constant calculation, but we think that we have no way forward other than to continue to engage both civilian and military with Pakistanis,” Clinton said.
She was responding to a question by Congressman David Cicilline, who wanted to know how the Obama administration balanced its interest in strengthening the relationship with Pakistan and at the same time deal with the extremism threat along its Afghan border.
Her remarks on the Capitol Hill, where Clinton advocated the significance of US assistance for Pakistan and Afghanistan, appeared to be a part of an attempt to ease tensions that emerged in the US-Pakistan relationship after early rhetoric on the Davis episode.
The top American diplomat said the US ties with Pakistan should be seen in a historical context. “We enlisted Pakistani people and government in our efforts to push out the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, which was one of the contributing factors to the fall of the Soviet Union. Then we accomplished that and we left. And we left them with jihadis and with drugs and with – awash in guns and money. And unfortunately, we saw some of the results that flowed from that,” she said.
Clinton also referred to the harm wrought by the Pakistan-specific Pressler Amendment on bilateral relations when the US imposed discriminatory sanctions on Islamabad in the 1990s. “We also had a difficulty with them regarding what was called the Pressler Amendment. You know, Admiral Mullen is fond of saying that every single soldier in the Pakistani military knows what the Pressler Amendment was, and not a single American soldier does, because it had such an impact on ending training and ending military-to-military relationships, and again, to our detriment,” Clinton noted.
She also highlighted Pakistan’s anti-terrorist success over the last two years. “If you look at what they have done since the last time I testified before this – first time I testified before this committee in early 2009 and I said then that Pakistanis were ceding territory to the terrorists, they were not going after them in their own country with their own military, that’s been 180 degrees. They have taken a lot of losses. They have pursued those extremists who are attacking them. They have worked with us to go after extremists, who are attacking our troops and our interests,”Clinton said, adding, “But it is a constant calculation about how best to work with the Pakistani government.”
Pakistan, she noted, has “a lot of internal pressures that make it difficult for them, but I would say, sitting here testifying before this committee, that in the last two years, we’ve made progress, but we have a long, long way to go before we can see the kind of stability that we think is necessary for the region and for American interests”. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk