WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama vowed the United States will
"insist" Pakistan fulfill its promises to counter militant sanctuaries
on its soil.
"We will work with the Pakistani government to root
out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keep
its commitments," Obama said in a televised speech on troop withdrawal
plans for the war in Afghanistan.
Obama's comments underscored
festering tensions between Washington and Islamabad in the wake of a
unilateral US raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in his
hideout in Pakistan last month.
In blunt language, Obama made
clear he was ready to order more assaults against any safe-havens
harboring those who aimed to kill Americans.
"For there should be
no doubt that so long as I am president, the United States will never
tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude
us, nor escape the justice they deserve," he said.
Referring to Pakistan, Obama said "no country is more endangered by the presence of violent extremists."
The
US president said his government would "continue to press Pakistan to
expand its participation in securing a more peaceful future for this
war-torn region."
Before his speech, Obama telephoned his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday, officials in Islamabad said.
The
bin Laden raid humiliated the Pakistani military and invited
allegations of incompetence and complicity, while Washington has
increasingly demanded that Islamabad take decisive action against
terror networks in the tribal badlands on the border with Afghanistan.
Apart
from the operation by US special forces that killed bin Laden, Obama
has overseen a major CIA drone bombing campaign against Al-Qaeda and
Taliban militants in Pakistan, targeting leaders with unmanned aircraft. AFP
