WASHINGTON: The safe havens in Pakistan for the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura posed a greater threat than ever, a group of US senators said on Wednesday.
But one member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee team, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, emphasised the need to maintain cordial relations with Pakistan.
“Pakistan has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. We need to be very thoughtful in our approach to Pakistan,” she warned. “And I don't think we can walk away. This is a complex country.”
In a separate video conference with reporters in Washington, Senator Shaheen noted Pakistan's cooperation was “important to what we are doing in Afghanistan and equally important as we look at the future of this region”.
Pakistan, she noted, was going to continue to border Afghanistan and would also retain its critical strategic location, serving as the nexus between the Middle East and the Far East.
The three-member delegation, which included the Armed Services Committee's Chairman Senator Carl Levin and Senator Jeff Merkley, concluded a visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan this week.
The senators were in the region from Aug 21 to 23 and met senior Pakistani and Afghan officials and US commanders to review progress in the US-led war against terror.
In Pakistan, the delegation had detailed meetings with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, they issued a statement in Washington, claiming that the US-led coalition and Afghan forces had successfully diminished Taliban havens in southern Afghanistan.
“As a result, the Taliban are increasingly focusing their efforts in eastern Afghanistan. Consequently, the Pakistan safe havens for the Haqqani group and the Afghan Taliban Quetta Shura pose a greater threat than ever,” the senators observed.
They said that the safe havens allowed the insurgents to cross the border to attack US, Afghan and coalition forces and then return to their sanctuaries.
The senators also noted that while the Pakistani army took on the terrorist groups – often at great cost in Pakistani lives – they had not taken on the Haqqani group and the Quetta Shura.
“We told the Pakistanis that we believe that their working to eliminate those safe havens is essential to a closer relationship between the United States and Pakistan,” the senators said.
Senator Shaheen noted that the relationship between the US and Pakistan “has been up and down” since the 1980s.
The Pakistan-specific Pressler Amendment, she noted, which stopped all US aid to the country over the nuclear dispute, also had a “real impact on our relationship in a very negative way”.
At time, the Pakistanis cooperated very well with the US but after the May 2 raid, there has been deterioration in that relationship, the senator said.
“I think we do need to be clear with the Pakistanis about our concerns. And as we're talking about the relationship going forward,” she said. “We (should) encourage them, as we think about the aid and support that we're giving, to do everything we can get them to cooperate with us.”
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