May 22, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429

WASHINGTON, May 21: Both the US administration and Congress have increased pressure on Pakistan to abandon talks with militants and demonstrate sincerity to the war on terror by capturing Baitullah Mehsud.

At a special hearing on Fata at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers put their differences aside in urging the administration to use its influence and persuade Pakistan to call off the talks.

The US media and think tanks are already opposing the talks and questioning Washington’s wisdom in providing military and economic assistance to a government which is making peace overtures to America’s enemies.

The US administration’s decision to go public with its objections to the peace talks comes days after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani assured US President George W. Bush in Egypt that his government would not negotiate with militants unless they laid down arms.

The situation in Fata is also expected to be high on her agenda when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Wednesday evening.

Britain supports Pakistan’s talks with tribal militants.

In the Senate, Senator John Kerry, a former Democratic presidential candidate, initiated the debate on Pakistan’s peace talks with the tribal militants when he recalled that during his meetings with Pakistan’s new leaders in February, he realised they had a very different understanding of the nature of the terrorist threat in Fata than the United States.

“In two days of meetings, Osama bin Laden’s name was hardly ever mentioned. Instead, the Pakistanis are focused on confronting a growing domestic Pashtun insurgency led by Baitullah Mehsud,” he said.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who appeared as a key witness before the Senate committee, endorsed the lawmakers’ concerns. “We are not the advocates of negotiations with terrorists,” he said. “We have real reservations about negotiated agreements” with extremists.

According to him, one of the metrics to measure Pakistan’s success in the war on terror would be the reduction in cross-border attacks inside Afghanistan.

“Another would be if you saw the government operating effectively against some of these militant extremists – like, for example, bringing Baitullah Mehsud, the head of this extremist group in south Waziristan, capturing him and bringing him to justice, which is what should happen to him.”

Mr Negroponte told the committee that Washington had repeatedly cautioned Islamabad about the talks despite a pledge from the Gilani government not to give “free space” to the extremists operating in the tribal areas.

The United States claims that similar peace talks in 2006 allowed militants to build a safe haven inside Fata which they now use for planning attacks across the world.

The United States, Mr Negroponte said, was concerned there were “elements” in the Pakistan government pushing for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.“We hope that they proceed cautiously and not accept an outcome that will give extremist elements the ability to use the Fata with impunity to carry out attacks on Pakistan, on Afghanistan or the United States or the rest of the world,” he said. “There is a lot at stake here and we have made that point repeatedly.”

The US, he said, has “some scepticism” about Pakistan’s ability to enforce a peace deal with the militants.

Mr Negroponte said that the US National Security Council was going to “look at the border region in its entirety” as part of the counter-terrorism drive.

“The aim, of course, is to try and find ways to deal most effectively and support our friends in dealing as effectively as possible with this terrorist threat,” he told reporters, without elaborating.