WASHINGTON –
Pakistan, under renewed US pressure since the death of Osama bin Laden,
is stepping up its efforts to battle extremists and help stabilize
Afghanistan, senior US Senator John Kerry said Tuesday.
"Some of them are important things that are very important to us
strategically, but they are not appropriate to discuss publicly," said
the Democratic lawmaker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.
Kerry, newly returned from a whirlwind visit to both countries, said he
had heard "frustration" from top Pakistani officials about the US raid
that killed the Al-Qaeda leader, but had made clear Washington expects
more from its ally.
"This relationship will not be measured by words or by communiques
after meetings like the ones that I engaged in. It will only be
measured by actions," said the Democratic lawmaker.
Amid US public anger that bin Laden was tracked to a Pakistani garrison
town nearly 10 years after the September 11 terrorist strikes, and
corresponding pressure on US lawmakers to cut aid to Islamabad, Kerry
said Pakistani leaders had pledged new efforts to cooperate with
Washington.
"They are concrete, they are precise, they are measurable and they are
in many cases joint -- and we will know precisely what is happening
with them in very, very short order," he said.
"I'm very, very confident about a number of those things having a major
impact on the things we need to do," said Kerry, who promised to detail
the new initiatives to his colleagues in a closed-door session expected
next week.
Kerry said high-level US-Pakistan talks "that will begin very, very
soon" would touch on "some larger issues" and added that if they go
well then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will decide "when and
if" to visit Pakistan.
The senator, who is sometimes discussed as a possible successor to
Clinton, said he had "no indication" during his trip to Islamabad that
high-level Pakistani officials had been complicit in hiding bin Laden.
"They admit things went wrong, they understand that mistakes were made,
and they're going to try to get at it. I'm convinced that they want to
find out because they want to hold those folks accountable," said Kerry.
US relations with Pakistan took a dive early this month after elite US
commandos swept into bin Laden's fortified compound in the Abbottabad
military academy town and killed the elusive Al-Qaeda leader,
embarrassing officials in Islamabad and raising questions about whether
they knew he was there.
US lawmakers' frustration was evident Tuesday as Kerry's committee
quizzed President Barack Obama's former national security adviser,
retired General Jim Jones, about prospects for improved US-Pakistan
ties.
"You have a partner who can seem, as some have said, to be both
firefighter and arsonist simultaneously," said Senator Richard Lugar,
the top Republican on the panel and Obama's former foreign policy
mentor.
Jones repeatedly questioned the judgment of Pakistani leaders -- saying
that "logic doesn't always play a dominant role" in decision-making in
Islamabad -- but said he hoped they would forcefully cast their lot in
with Washington.
"I'm hopeful that at long last, cooler heads will prevail and logic
will come into the equation and our colleagues in Pakistan will see the
future with a little bit more of a strategic vision," said Jones.
Pressed on whether Washington should freeze aid, Jones replied "I would
counsel against what might be a very tempting thing to do" and warned
against "long-term consequences" for US interests in the region.
Kerry said Pakistan's role would affect Obama's plans to start
withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in July and hand over security
to Afghan forces in 2014, a deadline seen by some in Islamabad as
Washington abandoning the region.
"We will pursue our policy in Afghanistan to the best of our ability no
matter what," the senator said, but the Pakistanis "hold the key to the
fastest, least costly, most effective" drawdown. AFP
