Islamabad : In signs of tattered US-Pakistan ties, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, and Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani did not pose together for photos after their meeting, and the tone of their separate statements was also far from cordial.
During his latest visit to Pakistan, Mullen told a Pakistani newspaper that the Inter-Services Intelligence's continued links with the Haqqani network were at the core of Pakistan's problematic relations with the United States.
"What I am concentrating on myself here is the presence of al-Qaeda and its leadership, which pose a big threat to the US. It is the Haqqani network which is killing the Americans across the border. We have to work together to eliminate this threat by sharing intelligence available on both sides and also defeating organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and TTP that now wish to be recognised internationally," he told another newspaper.
Mullen also indicated that there would be probably no reduction in the Central Intelligence Agency's footprint in Pakistan or in the drone attacks, which are mostly aimed at North Waziristan- the base of the Haqqanis- until the ISI dissociates itself from the terror network.
Several hours after the meeting between Mullen and Kayani, which one observer close to the Pakistani military described as tense and uncomfortable, the Pakistan military spokesman's office issued a statement saying that both officials had agreed on "addressing the trust deficit between the institutions and the people on both sides."
The statement went on to say that Kayani had "strongly rejected negative propaganda of Pakistan not doing enough" to combat terrorism and that he had "reinforced" his government's strong opposition to the US campaign of drone strikes, which he said "not only undermine our national effort against terrorism but turn public support against our efforts."
"There is a real difference now, a basic stalemate. Mullen has gone public, and Kayani has responded in kind," The Washington Post quoted Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani security analyst, as saying.
He said that while Washington was preoccupied with pushing back the Taliban before the summer deadline to begin troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, Pakistan was much more worried about archrival India using its influence in Afghanistan to "encircle" Pakistan.
A Pakistani security official said on the condition of anonymity that Pakistani military and intelligence officials were "highly displeased" by Mullen's allegations and his rejection of Pakistan's demands for a scaling back of drone attacks, the report said.
"The way Admiral Mullen talked here, his tough stance, didn't help at all. I would say, rather, it added to the prevailing tensions," the official stated.
The official said that Pakistani forces "consider the Haqqani network an enemy like other Taliban factions, and there should be no doubt about it," adding that launching an operation against Haqqani's base in North Waziristan was "only a matter of time and resources."
The report quoted another security official, as saying that the Pakistan Army was seriously discussing such an operation, but that it was insisting first on a pause in drone attacks because "they create problems for us and make it very hard for us to convince the tribal people that we are fighting our own war." ANI
