WASHINGTON, Feb 26: The US-Pakistan-Afghanistan talks are not over yet but Pakistan already seems to have lost much ground.

Since this weekend, when Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived in Washington for talks with his US and Afghan counterparts, Pakistan has been singled out as the most dangerous country in the world.

US lawmakers, think-tank experts and officials warned that the country was on the verge of an economic meltdown and a possible political disintegration.

Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani was also in town but his presence did not deter the Americans, or Afghans, from depicting Pakistan as an unstable country with the potential to destabilise the world.

“My thesis is that the main threat centre for instability in the world is not Iraq, it is not Afghanistan, it is much more Pakistan,” Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told a Washington think-tank on Thursday.

“If Pakistan becomes a failed state, it is a serious threat for you, for us and for the entire region,” he said at the Centre for American Progress.

Despite the fear of a militant takeover in Swat, neither the Americans nor Afghans want Pakistan to talk to the militants.

Although the Americans concede that military actions alone cannot end militancy, they want Islamabad to intensify its military operations in the tribal areas.

Pakistani officials are believed to have told their American counterparts that they are doing everything they can to fight extremists in Fata and Swat.

The delegation also sought to reassure administration officials that their recent deal to allow Islamic law in the Swat valley was not surrendering to the Taliban, but rather an attempt to drive a wedge between hard-core Taliban leaders and local pro-Taliban Islamists who might be wooed back to the government’s camp.

Also on Thursday, the US media quoted ISI Chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha as telling the White House and the State Department that his agency had purged itself of “rogue elements”.

The reports also quoted US officials as saying that they believed that some elements within the ISI were still helping the militants.

“The degree of that continuing relationship (between the ISI and the militants) is one of the things that need to be discussed openly and candidly between two friends, America and Pakistan,” said US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

On Wednesday, the Pakistani and Afghan foreign ministers met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over a three-way working dinner.

The working dinner was also attended by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Senator John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has proposed a $15 billion, 10-year aid package for Pakistan.

On Wednesday, Mr Kerry and his fellow Senator Chuck Hagel also appealed for an immediate injection of $5 billion into the Pakistani economy to save it from a possible meltdown.

The Americans argue that Pakistan faces two serious internal threats: militancy and a possible economic meltdown.

They offered to help Pakistan deal with both if it agrees to deal with the militants with an iron hand. For non-militant locals in Swat and Fata, the Americans are willing to sweeten this bitter pill with economic incentives.

Such incentives can also be expanded to cover the entire country, creating jobs, opening businesses and providing financial support to the government in return for Pakistan’s efforts to fight militants.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Qureshi urged the United States to provide unmanned aircraft to Pakistan.

He said that such aircraft would allow Pakistan to strike extremists hiding in rugged terrain along the Afghan border.

“We feel that if the technology is transferred to Pakistan, Pakistan will be in a better position to determine how to use the technology and, without alienating people, achieve the objective,” Mr Qureshi said.

Talking to reporters in Washington, a senior US political analyst Stephen Cohen said he believed if approached properly the United States could provide the drones to Pakistan.