Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Islamabad, has given warning that Pakistan must crack down on anti-American fighters or face more unilateral action by the US.
Ties between the US and the South Asian nation have soured in recent months. However, despite the apparent frustrations, the two countries could not give up their relationship, the US secretary of state said on Friday.
"There is frustration on both sides, which I recognise," Clinton said, calling for "give and take" from both sides.
"We are going to stay the course, and do everything we can to try to overcome the difficulties that we have faced together. Because we both have too much at stake. We cannot walk away."
Clinton said the US expected Pakistan to deny Afghan Taliban-linked fighters safe havens and saw a "strong" Pakistan
as critical to stability in the region.
"We look to Pakistan to take strong steps to deny Afghan insurgents safehavens and to encourage the Taliban to enter negotiations in good faith," she said.
"Now we have to turn our attention here on the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani and other terrorist groups and try to get them into a peace process but, if that failed, prevent them from committing more violence and murdering more innocent people."
Clinton delivered a similarly stern message to Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, during a meeting on Thursday that involved military, intelligence and civilian leaders from both sides.
For his part, Gilani urged Clinton to "give peace a chance" as envisaged in a Pakistani conference last month that opposed increasing US pressure for action against the Haqqani group.
0 comments:
Post a Comment