SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 28: Pakistan should be given a $10bn package as reward for its cooperation with America’s military coalition against Afghanistan, says the American Institute of International Studies (AIIS), a California-based research group.

An AIIS fellow, Dr Ahmad Faruqui, said in a study that Pakistan had made a U-turn in its policy toward the Taliban, retired pro-Taliban generals and decided to live with many Pakistanis viewing the action as a war against a Muslim country.

He said that the war proved to be unpopular and served to polarize the fragile society. He said Pakistan’s economy had been hit by the war as experts estimated that it would contract by $2bn.

To pull Pakistan’s economy out of the slump will take a package twice as large as the one that Reagan gave in 1981, he argued and added the figure was in line with the assistance the US provided to Arab allies during the Gulf War. President Reagan provided Pakistan $3.2bn in economic and military aid that would be worth $5.7 billion today.

“It needs to reward Pakistan - a moderate Islamic nation- fairly. A $10 billion package would represent a fair deal for this country,” he said.