News
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
ISI chief postpones US tripISLAMABAD: New Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief on Monday postponed a visit to the United States in the latest sign of tensions between the two allies struggling to get their relationship back on track. Pakistan and the United States have been at loggerheads over Pakistan’s six-month blockade on NATO supplies for Afghanistan and last week’s sentencing of a Pakistani doctor hired by the CIA to help find Osama bin Laden. While intelligence cooperation has continued, Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam’s decision not to accept a tentative invitation from CIA Director David Petraeus this month was unlikely to be viewed favourably in Washington. In a short text message sent to reporters, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) only said that the visit by the ISI director general had been “postponed due to his pressing commitments here”. “There is no other reason of postponing the visit,” a spokesman said. Frustrations have been growing in Pakistan and the United States on how to break the impasse over the NATO supply lines, US drone strikes on Pakistani soil and last week’s conviction of treason for Shakeel Afridi. Relations went into free fall last year, first when a CIA contractor shot dead two Pakistanis, then over the US raid that killed bin Laden on May 2, and lastly over US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November. After the air strikes, Pakistan shut its Afghan border to NATO supplies and agreed to reset relations on condition that Washington apologise for the soldiers’ deaths and end drone attacks. But five US drone strikes have been reported since a NATO summit in Chicago last week failed to secure a deal on resuming the supply lines, the most dramatic increase in attacks since parliament demanded in March that they stop. afp
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk