United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that Pakistan will face “dire consequences” if it fails to contain terrorists operating from its soil.
She made this statement in an interview with Bloomberg news two days
after she visited Islamabad, adding that Pakistan requires help from the
US and Afghanistan to battle militancy.
She added that the US administration does not want Pakistan to
overtly launch a military offensive against the banned outfits and
forces that attack US and Afghan forces, but carry out clandestine
actions.
There are “different ways of fighting besides overt military action,” she said.
She said that she stressed Pakistan to share intelligence with the US forces station in Afghanistan to foil attacks.
She also said that better synchronization might curtail incidents
like the attack on the American Embassy in Kabul meanwhile she admired
the cooperation of Pakistan for operation against Al-Qaeda.
In an interview with another US TV, she said that US and Pakistan
would work together for peace and security in Afghanistan as she also
recognized the need to stem militants’ use of safe havens on the Afghan
side for attacks against Pakistan.
Clinton, who led a high-level delegation including General Dampse,
David Petraeus for openly talked with top Pakistani political and
military leaders.
She said we stressed on two points that we need to squeeze the
terrorist networks, including the Haqqani network, out of their safe
havens, preventing them from being able to plan and carry out attacks
across the border.
“And we have to, on the Afghan side of the border, squeeze and
eliminate safe havens of those who move back and forth and use safe
havens in Afghanistan to attack Pakistan,” she said.
Islamabad has been for months asking the US-led international forces
stationed in Afghanistan to stop Afghan-based militants from using safe
havens in that country for attacks inside Pakistan.
Secondly, she added in the interview, “we have to have a very firm commitment to an Afghan-led reconciliation peace process.”
The chief US diplomat, who issued some tough statements ahead of her
visit to Islamabad this week, also openly acknowledged the effectiveness
of Pakistan’s cooperation against al-Qaeda militant organization.
She said that the cooperation on security that we have received over
the past years from Pakistan has been essential in our efforts to defeat
and disrupt the al-Qaeda network.
The Pakistanis, she noted, themselves have suffered enormously as a
result of their military actions against the terrorist networks and of
course that has not only been only military losses but civilians to a
total of about 30,000 over the last decade. SANA
