January 18, 2008	Friday	Muharram 08, 1429

WASHINGTON, Jan 17: A senior US official has said that the United States follows Pakistan’s strategy for dealing with militants in the tribal area and will continue to do so as the situation develops.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told a briefing in Washington that in 2006, President Pervez Musharraf devised a strategy aimed at rooting out the militants in Waziristan and trying to integrate those regions into Pakistan.

The strategy gave more freedom to tribal elders to deal with the militants, allowing them to make their own arrangements with the extremists if they agreed to give up militancy.

President Musharraf discussed this strategy with President George Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at an iftar-dinner at the White House in Sept 2006 and both the leaders endorsed his plan.

But Pakistan gave up this strategy after the White House publicly complained that instead of persuading the militants to relent or surrender, it was allowing them to regroup and re-invigorate their strength.

I think after some time he’s (President Musharraf) taken a look at that plan and decided that it needs a second look, said Mr McCormack.

And as they develop and refine their strategies, we’re going to of course refine our strategies along with them.

The US official acknowledged that the fight against extremists in the tribal region has to be a cooperative effort, but said that it’s also something that we’re watching very closely.

Asked to comment on media reports that militants had overrun a fort in South Waziristan, Mr McCormack said while he had no specific details of the reported incident, he knew that the Bush administration was watching the situation in that region very closely.

We have a strategy that we continually review with respect to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which includes North and South Waziristan, he said.

So it’s something that is occupying quite a bit of our time at the State Department, Department of Defence as well as the White House. So we know it’s an important issue. It’s an important issue for Pakistan as well and Pakistan’s future.