WASHINGTON, Jan 26: The US Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns, has said that the Taliban had established training camps in Waziristan and Balochistan while Pakistan needs to do more to close these.
Briefing reporters on Friday on a new US aid package for Afghanistan, Mr Burns said that Taliban forces based in these camps cross over into “Afghanistan to attack, then return to Pakistan and seek refuge and refitting”.
Earlier, Mushahid Hussain, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told a briefing in Washington that some people in the United Stats were using Pakistan as a “scapegoat” to hide their failure in Afghanistan.
He specially referred to a recent statement made by the Homeland Security Chief John Negroponte who has said Pakistan had allowed the Taliban and al-Qaeda to establish command and control centres in the country.
“Thank God, he did not blame Pakistan for bringing Daniel Ortega back to power in Nicaragua,” Mr Hussain said, adding Pakistan has nothing to gain from helping the Taliban.
In his briefing, Mr Burns also acknowledged that some of the insurgents attacking the Afghan and allied forces in Afghanistan were indigenous while others were coming from Pakistan.
The US, Afghan and Nato forces, he said, need to “push back” harder to defeat them.
We are working closely with President Musharraf, military and intelligence services to see that Pakistan will do more and make a concerted effort to strike at terrorist training camps in north and south Waziristan, and Balochistan, he said.
That is a major priority of our relations with Pakistan. Now we have a close relationship with President Musharraf. We admire what he has done and how he continues to strike out these insurgent groups.
Mr Burns conceded that the area where the Taliban were operating was “a difficult mountainous terrain” and that the Pakistani military has lost hundreds of people in counterinsurgency operations in these areas.
What we saw in 2006 was a concerted attempt by a large number of Taliban forces to cross the border from Pakistan. Others are indigenous and live in the country, he said.
And we understand that the United States and Nato need to push back against that in a very strong way, said Mr Burns while explaining the US efforts to get greater support from Nato states to build capacity for defeating Taliban.
Mr Burns disagreed with a reporter who suggested that the United States was disappointed with President Karzai.
We're not disappointed with President Karzai. He's our friend. He's a partner. We have great admiration for him. He's got one of the most difficult jobs in the world.
He's been a symbol and a figure of real unity for the country. And so we respect him and work with him in a productive way.
