Pakistan's foreign minister on Saturday warned the United States
against sending ground troops to her country to fight an Afghan
militant group that America alleges is used as a proxy by Pakistan's
top intelligence agency for attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.
The
warning came as a top U.S. military commander was in Pakistan for talks
with the army chief at a time of intense strain between the two
countries. The U.S. Embassy said Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S.
Central Command, arrived in Pakistan late Friday, and that he will meet
the army chief, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
Ties between Islamabad
and Washington are in crisis after American officials stepped up
accusations that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence was aiding
insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, including those who took part in
an attack on the U.S. Embassy last week in Kabul.
Pakistan's
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said in an interview Saturday that
there are red lines and rules of engagement with America, which should
not be broken.
"It opens all kinds of doors and all kinds of
options," she told Pakistan's private Aaj News TV from New York. The
comment was in response to a question about the possibility of U.S.
troops coming to Pakistan.
Khar, however, insisted that
Pakistan's policy was to seek a more intensive engagement with the U.S.
and that she would like to discourage any blame game.
"If many of your goals are not achieved, you do not make someone a scapegoat," she said, addressing the U.S.
The U.S. allegations have seen a strong reaction from Pakistan.
Kayani,
the Pakistani army chief, said on Friday that the charges were baseless
and part of a public "blame game" detrimental to peace in Afghanistan.
Other Islamabad officials urged Washington to present evidence for such
a serious allegation. Khar warned the United States is risking losing
an ally in the war on terror.
The row began when Adm. Mike
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday accused the
ISI agency of supporting Haqqani insurgents in planning and executing
last week's 22-hour assault on the U.S. Embassy and a truck bombing
that wounded 77 American soldiers days earlier.
Kayani said the allegations were "very unfortunate and not based on facts."
The
claims were the most serious yet by an American official against
nuclear-armed Pakistan, which Washington has given billions in civilian
and military aid over the last 10 years to try to secure its
cooperation inside Afghanistan and against al-Qaida.
The Haqqani
insurgent network is widely believed to be based in Pakistan's North
Waziristan tribal area along the Afghan border. The group has
historical ties to Pakistani intelligence, dating back to the war
against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The relationship
between the two countries has never been smooth, but it took one of its
hardest hits when U.S. commandos slipped into Pakistan on May 2 without
informing the Pakistanis of their mission and killed al-Qaida chief
Osama bin Laden in a garrison town not far from Islamabad. AP
