President Obama stressed that “the United States will not have to rely exclusively on Pakistan to investigate Osama bin Laden's support network inside the country” and has retrieved enough materials from Bin Laden's compound to make its own conclusions. – File Photo by Reuters

WASHINGTON: The United States believes that Osama bin Laden's killing has created a new opportunity for Pakistan to redefine its relations with India and review its security preferences.

In these interviews, they defined last week's raid on Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, which led to the Al Qaeda's leader's death, also as an opportunity for Pakistan to recommit itself to the international community.

In doing so, President Obama also stressed that “the United States will not have to rely exclusively on Pakistan to investigate Osama bin Laden's support network inside the country” and has retrieved enough materials from Bin Laden's compound to make its own conclusions.

“The US has had Bin Laden's compound under surveillance for months, checking the comings and goings. And there is all that material that was confiscated from his lair during the raid,” he said.

Mr Obama also acknowledged that the differences between the United States and Pakistan were real and underlined the need to work together more effectively to overcome those differences.

“There have been times where we've had disagreements. There have been times where we wanted to push harder, and for various concerns, they might have hesitated,” he said.

“Those differences are real. And they'll continue,” he said but also stressed that Osama bin Laden's discovery in a military town deep inside Pakistan provided an opportunity to remove those differences as well.

“I think that this will be an important moment in which Pakistan and the United States get together and say, 'All right, we've gotten Bin Laden, but we've got more work to do'.”

The US president noted that there were “ways for us to work more effectively together than we have in the past” and such cooperation will be “important for our national security”.

Mr Obama did not explain the issues that divide the two countries, nor did he tell how he intended to deal with those issues.

But Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and often conveys the Obama administration's messages to Pakistan, not only underlined those issues but also spelled out plans for dealing with them.

But before doing so, like President Obama, Senator Kerry also conceded that “for a period of time our interests in Pakistan have not converged”.

The Pakistanis, he said, had had “a different set of interests about India, a different set of interests about what kind of Afghanistan they want to see”.

The Pakistanis, he added, have also been apprehensive about a 350,000-strong army being built up in Afghanistan.

“They have a different interest on nuclear weapons, for instance, and on nuclear policy,” he noted.

“All of that has to change. And all of that, I believe, can change,” he emphasised. “I've had some early conversations with high level officials of Pakistan. And there's an indication to me there is an enormous amount of introspection going on and some very deep evaluating within Pakistan.” Senator Kerry said Pakistani officials had told him that they were thinking of “a government inquiry outside of the military” to determine who was responsible for keeping Bin Laden in Abbottabad.

“For the first time there is major criticism in Pakistani papers of the intelligence network and military in Pakistan,” the senator said.

“So I see this as a time for us to be careful, to be thoughtful, to proceed deliberately but determinedly in order to lay on the table the things that we know have to change,” the senator said.

“The relationship with the ISI, the double-dealing, the attitude, and frankly wastefulness of resources towards India, the question of cooperation with respect to Afghanistan” were the issues over which Pakistan needed to change its attitude, the senator said.

“I see opportunity in all of this to sort of punch a reset button and frankly serve our interests and theirs much more effectively.”