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WASHINGTON Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan has proved its resolve to fight terrorism with a series of sustained actions as he stressed that US commitment to the region is critical to long-term security and stability, reports DawnNews.
He told a Washington newspaper that Pakistan has already demonstrated its anti-terror commitment with the capture of many top terrorist leaders and elimination of more than 600 Al-Qaeda fighters.
The foreign minister, who leads Pakistan at the March 24 Strategic Dialogue with the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, also cited successful operations against Taliban militants in the mountainous northwestern and tribal regions.
Pakistan continues to view the United States as a partner at war with a common enemy “despite past differences and distrust,” he told The Washington Examiner.
However, Qureshi said the talk of setting date for withdrawal of US and international forces from Afghanistan sends a wrong signal and is music to ears of militants.
The foreign minister argued the US cannot afford to walk away from the region even if it pulls out its troops from Afghanistan.
In recent months, senior Obama Administration officials have been hailing close ties with Pakistan, which has deployed more than 150,000 troops in its northwestern region to check militant activities.
Next week's strategic dialogue — the first at the ministerial level — takes place in the backdrop of a string of successes Islamabad has achieved with the arrest of top Afghan Taliban leaders and Al-Qaeda getting weakened along Pakistan-Afghanistan border as a result of cooperative efforts by the anti-terror allies.
Meanwhile, a senior Pakistani commander told the newspaper that foreign fighters from Egypt and Algeria abet militants fighting the country's forces in the northwestern and tribal areas.
The report said US officials agree with the Pakistani assessment that operatives from some African countries assist militants operating in the tribal areas.
