WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has publicly acknowledged that relationship between the United States and Pakistan is complex and that there are tensions and issues “festering from the past”.
“Certainly, our relationship with Pakistan is complex,” the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Pak-istan and Afghanistan, David Sedney, told reporters after a meeting in Washington last week between the defence delegations of the two countries.
“There have been a lot of ups and downs over the years, and there are a lot of areas where we still have a lot of open questions and where there are, for lack of a better word, issues that continue to fester from the past. While it’s unfortunate, that’s also understandable.”
The 18th Defence Consul-tative Group Session — the first since 2006 — was led by US Under-secretary of Defence for Policy Michele Flournoy and Pakistan’s Defence Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Syed Athar Ali.
The first such meeting was held in 2002. The next meeting to assess progress will be held early next year in Islamabad.
Conceding that there were tensions on both sides, Mr Sedney said: “There’re things that Pakistan wants that we’re not able to do, things that we want that Pakistan is not able to do.”
The Pentagon official admitted that “sometimes our discussions with our Pakistani colleagues are very, very difficult. Other times they’re very, very positive.”
Mr Sedney said that he had headed the department that dealt with Pakistan for almost a year now and was now seeing “an increasingly positive trend, both in the discussions and the results we’re able to get.”
The talks between the two sides, he said, focussed on these issues and the head of the Pakistani delegation, because he is a retired military officer, “did take on some of these questions directly.
He talked about some — and there are lingering tensions. But we also believe that the kind of cooperation we’ve had recently is helping to address that”.
While reporting on the talks, the US Armed Forces Press Service said that senior US leaders assured their Pakistani counterparts that the United States was committed to a long-term strategic partnership with Pakistan, which was critical to the success of President Barack Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy.
The report quoted Ms Flournoy and others as telling the Pakistani delegation that the US would remain a stabilising force in the region long after the end of the Afghan conflict.
Ms Flournoy recognised actions Pakistan had taken to deal with extremists within its border, and promised continued US support.
“This is a comprehensive effort,” Mr Sedney said. “This is not just a military-focussed effort; to focus on one military task, and then the relationship stops…. It is a whole-of-government approach that is aimed at addressing the immediate [threats], but also looking forward to a longer, more strategic [partnership].”
At his briefing, Mr Sedney also spoke on two particular issues — Afghan Taliban and North Waziristan — that, according to the US and Pakistani media, have created tensions between the two countries.
The US official, however, played down the differences and insisted that the two sides understood each other’s positions on these issues as well.
Asked if Pakistan would now be more willing to take on the Afghan Taliban, the Pentagon official said the two countries had a “common commitment” to go after the extremists who threatened both. But that ability to go after the extremists, he said, depended on both capabilities and information, “and all of that doesn’t always exist at the same time”.
Asked if the talks also focussed on a new Pakistani offensive in North Waziristan, and against the Haqqani network and the Quetta shura, Mr Sedney said that such offensives were “not a simple, one-step, go-in, attack-and-then-leave” type operations.
“When we have exact information, exact targeting information, we will be providing it to Pakistan, and Secretary (of Defence Robert) Gates is expecting their cooperation.”
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