November 16, 2008	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 17, 1429

NEW YORK, Nov 15: Pakistan has asked the United States to give it the high-tech equipment and means to combat terrorists who are operating from the Pakistan-Afghan border, a Pakistan embassy spokesman said in New York on Saturday.

Talking to reporters at the end of President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to New York, he said the visit had accomplished all its “objectives”.

Mr Zardari, who came here on Tuesday to attend the UN conference on “Culture of Peace”, used the opportunity to interact with the incoming leadership in Washington.

The two-day meeting ended on Thursday night after unanimously adopting a declaration, sponsored by Pakistan and the Philippines, which rejected religious terrorism and killing of innocent civilians.

Apart from attending the interfaith dialogue, the president met various leaders attending the conference. He also participated in a tripartite summit involving King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

On the bilateral front, the president made phone calls to some key American leaders and officials, including Senator Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Madeline Albright, a former secretary of state and president-elect Barak Obama’s representative to the upcoming G-20 summit in Washington.

Asked whether the CIA chief Michael Hayden had met the president, the spokesman said coyly that he would not comment on intelligence matters. But he said there was good cooperation between Pakistan and the United States on intelligence sharing and that contacts in this regard take place from time to time.

Commenting on Mr Hayden’s statement that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan, the spokesman said: “We have no intelligence and if there is any actionable intelligence the United

States should share it with us, and we will act on it.”