The United States has a set of expectations it wants the government
in Pakistan to meet, including in combating terrorism, U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.
She acknowledged
that Pakistan has not always done all that the U.S. wanted to go after
militants hiding on its soil. Pakistan has waged a two-year campaign
against militants targeting the weak U.S.-backed government but has
done little to expunge safe havens for militants who attack U.S. and
NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. will keep pressing that
point and trying to strengthen a relationship with nuclear-armed
Pakistan, Clinton said, because it's in the long-term security interest
of the U.S. to do so. The secretary is in Paris to join in celebrations
for the 50th anniversary of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development in Europe, an economics standards body.
"There
have been times when we wanted to push harder, and for various reasons
they have not," Clinton said. "Those differences are real. They will
continue." She added strong praise for Pakistani cooperation since the
Sept. 11 attacks, saying that the country had allowed the killing of
"more terrorists than anyplace else in the world."
Pakistan's
prime minister said Thursday that his country will use "all appropriate
means" to attack militant hideouts inside the country, amid rising
criticism of the nation's security forces in the wake of a deadly
16-hour assault on a naval base last weekend.
Yousuf Raza Gilani
gave no indication the army was considering new offensives along the
Afghan border, where most of the militants in Pakistan are based along
with other groups and affiliates who are the greatest danger to U.S.
troops in Afghanistan.
The United States wants to see action in
the North Waziristan region especially, where a deadly Afghan Taliban
faction is based, to help it put pressure on Afghan insurgents and
enable it to begin withdrawing troops later this summer after 10 years
of war.
"We do have a set of expectations that we are looking for
the Pakistani government to meet," Clinton said, but "it is not as
though they have been on the sidelines."
Clinton did not mention
Osama bin Laden, the Sept. 11 mastermind killed in a U.S. raid in
Pakistan on May 2 that has enraged Pakistanis and undermined the
credibility of the country's military.
And she did not answer a
question about whether she is disappointed in the reaction of the
Pakistani government, which has included a demand that some U.S.
military counterterror trainers leave the country. Pakistani leaders
have also done little to tamp down anti-American fervor following the
bin Laden raid, and at times have appeared to whip it up.
"We
will be working through these near-term challenges, but we will also
keep our eye on what is in our strategic interest. That is our first
and highest responsibility," Clinton said.
Washington has been
quietly helping train Pakistan security forces in the northwest, but
that cooperation has faltered after the bin Laden raid. AP
