WASHINGTON: The United States would continue to urge Pakistan to take action against the Haqqani network, a State Department official said on Tuesday and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also expressed the need for a joint effort against the group.
But some US media outlets reported on Tuesday that Pakistan was taking steps to quietly reopen Nato supply routes to Afghanistan in the next few weeks. Last week, a parliamentary committee allowed the government to reopen the routes provided they were not used for transporting weapons.
“We are trying to strengthen the relationship with Pakistan, but will continue to make the case for putting pressure and taking action against groups like the Haqqani network,” State Department’s deputy spokesman Mark Toner told a briefing in Washington.
“The United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all need to take steps and cooperate to counter this threat together,” he added.
Earlier Tuesday, the State Department released a copy of Secretary Clinton’s press talks in Brasilia, saying that in her conversation with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, she had expressed her “strong conviction that there has to be a concerted effort by the Pakistanis with the Afghans, with the others of us, against extremists”.
Secretary Clinton said that when she visited Pakistan last October, she made it very clear that Pakistan had to “work with us to squeeze the Haqqani Network. And I’m going to continue to make that point, to press it hard”.
Because of the threat the Haqqani network posed to the entire region, “we’re going to take it very seriously”, she said.
Secretary Clinton telephoned the foreign minister on Sunday.
But Mr Toner said that US experts were still gathering information about Sunday’s terrorist attacks in Kabul, “And we don’t know whether these will lead us to Pakistan-based militants.”
The State Department spokesman noted that the United States had been quietly raising concerns about the Haqqani network at various levels in Pakistan. “We have had a difficult time in the relationship with Pakistan, but we would like our counter-terrorism cooperation to continue,” he added.
He also noted that the Pakistani parliamentary review of US-Pakistan relationship had completed and the United States now wanted to “have a strong and serious discussion with them about all issues including the Haqqani network”.
Meanwhile, a US media outlet reported that Islamabad had already alerted the Pakistan Oil Tankers Association to prepare for restarting its operations.
The association has been transporting around 70 per cent of non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan since November 2001 but they halted their operations after Pakistan blocked the routes over a Nov 26 Nato raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The association used to process about 200 to 250 Nato containers a day before the blockade.
The US media report noted that Nato had already been using Pakistan’s airspace for supplies to its troops in Afghanistan, which Pakistan allowed in February as the first trust-building measure.
But America’s main news agency AP reported on Tuesday that the weekend attacks in Kabul could trigger fresh tension between Washington and Islamabad as they attempt to rebuild their troubled relationship.
