Washington: Keeping up pressure on Pakistan
to strike at militant groups in North Waziristan, US has
warned if Islamabad does not be a part of the solution, it
could be branded as part of the problem.
Pointing out that a "sort of witches brew of militant
groups" was sheltering in the rugged area, the Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy said US is engaged in
a very "candid and intensive" discussions with Pakistan about
how they can together deal with some of these groups.
"Insurgency continues to benefit from sanctuaries and
support inside Pakistan. This has contributed to rise of
cross-border incidents and the security situation in Regional
Command East remains tenuous as a result," Flournoy said.
"Safe havens along the border between Afghanistan and
Pakistan are a very serious problem, and they are at the top
of our agenda in our engagement with the Pakistani
government," she said.
Labelling the tribal areas along the border with
Afghanistan as "under governed" regions, the top Pentagon
official said, "there are groups operating in these areas -- a
sort of witches brew of militant groups that do very much pose
a threat, not only to our campaign in Afghanistan and Afghans
future stability, but also I would argue to the future
stability and viability of Pakistan itself."
She said it was in Pakistan`s interest to have a
friendly, stable, and secure Afghanistan on its border.
"But that`s not something they`ve experienced
historically for a very long time. So we have a lot of work
to do to convince them that that outcome as possible and that
it`s something that they should be part of achieving," she
said.
The Pentagon official said it was unacceptable to US to
have pockets along the border where militants come across and
attack Afghans, attack US interests, the embassy for example,
attack our soldiers.
"We want to do this in cooperation with Pakistan that
this has become a serious force protection issue for us, and
we will pursue means necessary to deal with this problem,"
Flournoy said.
The Pentagon official said even though the US has several
billions of dollars of security assistance in the pipeline,
very little of that is being delivered to Pakistan now because
most of its equipment deliveries require training at the
receiving end.
"Well, Pakistan, in the wake of the bin Laden raid and
other things, asked us to pull all our trainers back. So we
can`t impart training on the equipment. So we can`t deliver
the equipment. So this is blocking the delivery of a lot of
assistance that`s already in the pipeline," she said.
The US official also said that some financial payments
owed to the Pakistani government had not been released for the
last two quarters because we need to see concrete progress on
some of our counter-terrorism objectives together.
"I believe that we can be successful in Afghanistan even
with some degree of continued safe havens in Pakistan, but it
will be much more difficult and much more resource intensive
to sustain that success," she said.
But, the Pentagon official declared that Washington would
continue to degrade the insurgency and put pressure on
safe havens in Pakistan in a way that will reduce that threat,
she said.
PTI
