Washington:
After saying that Washington was losing patience with Pakistan for not acting on terror groups, the US is now trying to tone down its stance. It now says America is "working constructively with Pakistan" to fight terror.
The sudden conciliatory tone comes after Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's warning that the US risked losing its partnership with Pakistan if it continued criticising Islamabad.
What left Pakistan livid was America's assertion that its powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has trained the Haqqani network, the deadliest terror group in Afghanistan and the one that is said to have carried out several recent attacks on US targets in Kabul, including the attack on the US embassy on September 13.
But an angry Pakistan immediately rejected that allegation. First, Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said it was not "based on facts". Then Ms Khar indulged in some plainspeak on the issue. She warned that the US risked losing its partnership with Pakistan if it continued it scathing criticism of the ISI's role in terror. She was also quoted as saying that the Haqqani group was the CIA's "blue-eyed boy" for many years.
She echoed what Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said on Sunday. "The Haqqani network was trained and produced by the CIA," he had said, pointing out that the group did not originate in Pakistan. Yes, he said, Pakistan had helped the CIA during the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but "the US should not now speak about things which happened 20 years ago."
Ms Khar's rap seems to have hit the right note with the US now attempting to tone down the open spat with Pakistan. State Department spokesperson Mark Toner today said his government reaffirmed American commitments to its relationship with Pakistan.
"US recognises Haqqani network an area of concern. We have identified that, we've raised it at the highest levels with the Pakistanis. We've said we need to take action against the Haqqani Network, and were committed at this point to working constructively with them to do that," he said.
"We are addressing these concerns by working constructively with the Pakistani Government," he added.
The sudden conciliatory tone comes after Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's warning that the US risked losing its partnership with Pakistan if it continued criticising Islamabad.
What left Pakistan livid was America's assertion that its powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has trained the Haqqani network, the deadliest terror group in Afghanistan and the one that is said to have carried out several recent attacks on US targets in Kabul, including the attack on the US embassy on September 13.
But an angry Pakistan immediately rejected that allegation. First, Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said it was not "based on facts". Then Ms Khar indulged in some plainspeak on the issue. She warned that the US risked losing its partnership with Pakistan if it continued it scathing criticism of the ISI's role in terror. She was also quoted as saying that the Haqqani group was the CIA's "blue-eyed boy" for many years.
She echoed what Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said on Sunday. "The Haqqani network was trained and produced by the CIA," he had said, pointing out that the group did not originate in Pakistan. Yes, he said, Pakistan had helped the CIA during the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but "the US should not now speak about things which happened 20 years ago."
Ms Khar's rap seems to have hit the right note with the US now attempting to tone down the open spat with Pakistan. State Department spokesperson Mark Toner today said his government reaffirmed American commitments to its relationship with Pakistan.
"US recognises Haqqani network an area of concern. We have identified that, we've raised it at the highest levels with the Pakistanis. We've said we need to take action against the Haqqani Network, and were committed at this point to working constructively with them to do that," he said.
"We are addressing these concerns by working constructively with the Pakistani Government," he added.
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