Washington: As US confidence in the Pakistan government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the main rival of President Asif Ali Zardari.
With Taliban and other terror groups becoming emboldened within Pakistan, the Obama administration officials feel that opening ties with Sharif could be useful to confront the stiffening challenge by insurgents, New York Times reported quoting Obama administration officials.
"The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government," the paper said.
Quoting administration officials, the paper said General David H Petraeus, the Chief of the US CENTCOM had said in recent private meeting in Washington that Pakistan's government is increasingly vulnerable.
The newspaper said because of his ties with Islamists, the US government had long held Sharif at arm's length. But now some Obama officials feel that building up ties with Sharif could be useful in helping Zardari's government to confront the Taliban.
US officials and lawmakers have been highly critical of recent peace deals reached with the Taliban in Swat and have been putting intense pressure on Islamabad to take steps to flush out the extremists.
Washington is wary about its bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani policies, so Obama administration officials say they are not trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Zardari and Sharif.
But they say that both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard C Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan had both urged Zardari and Sharif to look ways to work together, seeking to capitalise on former Prime Minister's appeal among the Islamist groups, the times said.
"The President's popularity is in the double digit now. Nawaz Sharif is at 83 per cent. They need to band together against the Militants", the newspaper quoted the officials as reflecting.
"There certainly is no agreement that Nawaz should become Zardari's Prime Minister", the officials said. But he added " We need people who have influence over the militancy in Pakistan to calm it down, Who's got influence? The army, yes... and Nawaz yes".