WASHINGTON, Feb 25: The United States recognizes the position the military enjoys in the Pakistani society and wants to work with it, observed a senior State Department official at a recent briefing to the Washington-based Defence Writers Groups.

The US official said that Pakistan is an important country in an important part of the world and it is in US interest to have good relations with it.

“The military component of this relationship is important. The military of Pakistan plays a part in the social structure and it is a country that is of importance to the United States.”

Speaking on the change of US perception about President Pervez Musharraf after 9/11, the official said the US intent to improve relations with Pakistan had long pre-dated 9/11. “It was their support for the Taliban and the problems related to Afghanistan. It figured very prominently in our conversations with President Musharraf in August of 2001,” the official said.

The Bush administration, the official said, believed that both President Musharraf and Prime Minister Jamali governments were stable. The elected government, the official said, was “still finding its feet, the senate elections are going to take place at the end of February. So they are still working this return to democracy.”

The official said that after 9/11, the United States has provided $600 million as military assistance to Pakistan and in exchange Pakistan used $600 million for social programmes, for job creation and health.

The revival of the US-Pakistan Defence Consultative talks, the official said, was an important part of the overall policy to move the relationship with Pakistan beyond where it has been.

The official said although sanctions imposed on Pakistan in November 2002 for buying missiles from China are still in place, they were waived for all military equipment related to Operation Enduring Freedom.

The official said that each of the arms transfer requests from Pakistan is essentially studied on a case-by-case basis “but there is no more legal impediment.” The official said the United States has had problems in expanding Pakistan’s textile quota because of resistance from its own cotton growers but it gave Pakistan $140 million a year over four or five years with Congress’s approval.

The official said the United States was not concerned about a recent defence pact between India and Iran. The Indians, she said, had reassured the United States that they had no intention right now of a military-to-military relationship with Iran, which would obviously cause concern.

The US official said she did not believe that a possible war in Iraq could lead to an India-Pakistan conflict. She said both India and Pakistan had withdrawn their troops from the border, although the rhetoric was still high. She said there’s no correlation between the situation in Iraq and the situation in South Asia.