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WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Monday that the United States was “going to be absolutely clear-eyed” about its military assistance” to Pakistan and would “tie it to our ability to cooperate” with that country in the war against terrorism.
In the same statement, the State Department confirmed that the Obama administration had set up certain criteria for Pakistan to qualify for future security assistance.
The US media reported earlier on Monday that the United States was conditioning security assistance to Pakistan to a “secret scorecard” of its cooperation with the American military and counter-terrorism objectives.
“This relationship with Pakistan is not an easy one but it's an extremely important one,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington.
“While our civilian assistance continues unchanged, on the security side, on the military side, we have had to make some changes based on cooperation,” she added.
“We need to have the appropriate military personnel in. If all the training assistance is going forward, we have to have the trainers there, that on counter-terrorism, the level of our ability to work together depends on continuing to strengthen this dialogue,” said the State Department official while explaining the conditions attached to US security assistance to Pakistan.
The review process, which has been in place since shortly after the raid, is based on “classified scorecards” that track Pakistan’s cooperation in four areas. While aid would depend on proof of Pakistan’s progress in these areas, there is no specific dollar value attached to each item, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“The message is: You make progress in these areas, and we can release some of this assistance,” a senior US official said.
“Give us something that we can show [Congress] that we're working together.”
