US to continue pressure on Pakistan for positive role: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reiterated that US would continue to mount heavy pressure on Pakistan for positive role in war on terror, Geo News reported.

In an interview with an American news agency, Clinton said war against terrorists would persist, adding that efforts would continue to kill, arrest or dilute the influence of militants belong to Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban or Haqqani network.

She further said several countries are in contact with Taliban and interfering in Afghanistan. 

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=24555&title=US-to-continue-pressure-on-Pakistan-for-positive-role:-Clinton

US cannot abandon Pakistan relationship: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the United States cannot abandon Pakistan but that the South Asian nation must help solve Afghanistan’s difficulties or it will “continue to be part of the problem.”

US Cannot Abandon Pakistan: Hillary Clinton

Her comments were the latest in a series by US officials exposing the difficulty of the relationship with Pakistan, particularly after Washington publicly accused its powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting a militant attack on the US embassy in Kabul on Sept. 13.

The head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has denied the US accusation.

Answering questions after a speech sponsored by the Center for American Progress in Washington, Clinton said the United States had no choice but to work with Pakistan in trying to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.

“This is a very difficult relationship but I believe strongly it is not one we can walk away from and expect that anything will turn out better,” she said.

“Pakistan has to be part of the solution or they will continue to be part of the problem,” she added.

“And therefore, as frustrating as it is, we just keep every day going at it and I think we make very slow, sometimes barely discernible progress, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/us-cannot-abandon-pakistan-relationship-clinton.html

Clinton calls Iran plot ‘dangerous escalation’

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday denounced an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington as a ‘dangerous escalation’ by Tehran and called for international condemnation.

The plot is “a flagrant violation of international and US law and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism,” Clinton said.

“Iran must be held accountable for its actions.”

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/clinton-calls-iran-plot-dangerous-escalation.html

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“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” it said. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”

RIM did not say how long it might take. In India, top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel sent text messages to customers saying BlackBerry services were likely to be restored in four to five hours.

The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.

Many companies, no longer seeing the need to pay to be locked into RIM’s secure proprietary email service, have already began allowing employees to use alternative smartphones, particularly Apple’s iPhone, for corporate mail.

RIM has made inroads into the youth market and into developing economies attracted by its free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, partially compensating for its losses in the corporate market in North America and Western Europe.

RBC said the latest crisis could hurt RIM’s reputation in these key markets, particularly after high-profile tussles with states whose governments demanded access to encrypted communications for security reasons.

“Following recent high-profile sovereign challenges to open up RIM’s secure networks… these outages create another highly visible PR challenge, coming in markets where the company is still growing,” its analysts wrote in a note.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/millions-suffer-as-blackberry-disruptions-enter-third-day.html

US open to Afghan peace deal including Haqqani: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signalled that the United States remains open to exploring a peace deal including the Haqqani network, the militant group that US officials blame for a campaign of high-profile violence that could jeopardise Washington’s plans for withdrawing smoothly from Afghanistan.

“Where we are right now is that we view the Haqqanis and other of their ilk as, you know, being adversaries and being very dangerous to Americans, Afghans and coalition members inside Afghanistan, but we are not shutting the door on trying to determine whether there is some path forward,” Clinton said when asked whether she believed members of the Haqqani network might reconcile with the Afghan government.

“It’s too soon to tell whether any of these groups or any individuals within them are serious,” she said in an interview with Reuters.

Inclusion of the Haqqani network in a hoped-for peace deal — now a chief objective in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy after a decade of war — is a controversial idea in Washington.

Officials blame the group for last month’s attack on the US embassy in Kabul and a truck bombing that injured scores of American soldiers.

The State Department is facing heat from Capitol Hill for refraining, at least so far, from officially designating the Haqqani group, which US officials say is based in western Pakistan, as a terrorist organisation.

The White House has backed away from assertions from Admiral Mike Mullen, who was the top US military officer until he retired last month, that Pakistani intelligence supported the Haqqani network in the September 13 embassy attack.

But President Barack Obama and others have put their sometimes-ally Pakistan on notice that it must crack down on militants or risk severing a key relationship.

According to media reports, US officials have held meetings with Haqqani network representatives as part of their efforts — which have not yet yielded any visible results — to strike a peace deal, but the State Department declines to discuss details of the reconciliation process.

In recent months reconciliation has become a more prominent feature of Obama’s Afghan strategy even as US and Nato soldiers continued to battle the Taliban and Haqqani militants in Afghanistan’s volatile south and east.

Earlier this year, Clinton advanced a peace deal as a key plank of regional policy for the first time, saying Washington would support a settlement between the Afghan government and those militant groups that meet certain requirements, including renouncing violence and supporting the Afghan constitution.

Fighting, talking

Despite the conciliatory signals, Clinton said the United States would stick to its military campaign that the White House hopes will make militants more likely to enter serious negotiations.

“Now, it is also true that we are still trying to kill and capture or neutralise them (the Haqqani network),” Clinton said. “And they are still trying to, you know, kill as many Americans, Afghans and coalition members as they can.”

“In many instances where there is an ongoing conflict, you are fighting and looking to talk,” Clinton said. “And then eventually maybe you are fighting and talking. And then maybe you’ve got a cease-fire. And then maybe you are just talking.”

It is unclear how quickly a peace deal could be had, as it remains unclear how military commanders can achieve and defend security improvements as the foreign force in Afghanistan gradually grows smaller.

While parts of the Taliban’s southern heartland are safer than they were, Obama will be withdrawing the extra troops he sent to Afghanistan in 2010 just as commanders’ focus turns to the rugged eastern regions where the Haqqani group are believed to operate.

Clinton did not directly address the question of designating the Haqqani network as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation,’ but suggested the United States would want to keep its options open as it seeks peace in a region known for historic merry-go-round of political and military alliances.

“It’s always difficult in this stage of a conflict, as you think through what is the resolution you are seeking and how do you best obtain it, to really know where you’ll be in two months, four months, six months,” Clinton said.

“We are going to support the Afghans and they want to continue to see whether there is any way forward or whether you can see some of the groups or their leaders willing to break with others.”

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/us-open-to-afghan-peace-deal-clinton.html

Ties with Pakistan vital to security, says US

WASHINGTON: Ties with Pakistan remained vital to US national security, the White House said on Friday as the State Department pledged to continue to work with Islamabad to defeat terrorism.

“The cooperation we have with Pakistan is extremely important in terms of our national security objectives, in terms of protecting Americans, in terms of taking the fight to Al Qaeda,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told a briefing in Washington.

“And that’s why we continue to work with the Pakistanis and try to build on that cooperation,” he added.

At the State Department, spokesperson Victoria Nuland underlined “an intense relationship on a number of issues, including on the counterterrorism docket.”

She also noted that US secretaries of state and defence and the CIA’s chief had all maintained contacts with their Pakistani counterparts while a special envoy was due in Islamabad for talks on all major issues.

“We are going to continue working on this issue of counterterrorism together because it is in both of our interests,” Ms Nuland said.
The statements followed recent media reports that increased cooperation between US and Pakistani intelligence agencies had
helped defuse the existing tensions between the two countries.

The ISI – although much-maligned in the US media – has been credited in these reports with arranging a meeting between US
officials and the Haqqani network.

ISI-CIA TIES: On Friday, the Director of US National Intelligence, James Clapper, told the Associated Press news agency that the ISI had quietly stepped up cooperation with the CIA, arresting some Al Qaeda suspects at their request and allowing US interrogators access to the detainees.

Pakistan has also stopped demanding the CIA suspend the covert drone strikes that have damaged Al Qaeda in Fata, another report said.

This cooperation “could mark a turning point in US-Pakistani relations,” observed Fox News while reporting the development.

“They are doing things to cooperate and be helpful,” said Mr Clapper. Other US officials told Fox News that both countries have made some progress in restoring the joint intelligence cooperation that used to be routine prior to the covert US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.After the raid Pakistan stopped joint operations with American intelligence officers, refused access to militant detainees and delayed visas for some US officials.

At the State Department, spokesperson Nuland, however, hinted that Pakistan had also allowed US officials to question bin Laden’s wives.

“We are working well with the Pakistanis on the aftermath of the bin Laden events,” she said but refused to “get into any specifics” of this cooperation. The US also appears to have softened its stance on Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani physician, who helped Americans trace bin Laden and is now in custody in Pakistan.

Washington wants him in the United States with his family. Pakistan not only turned down the request but a parliamentary committee indicated this week that he could be charged with treason.

The White House press secretary refused to condemn Pakistan when asked to comment on the committee’s decision.

“I’d refer you to the Pakistani government,” he said.

State Department’s Ms Nuland also refused to discuss this issue at a briefing where reporters asked half a dozen questions on the decision to try Dr. Afridi on treason charges.

“I’m not, from this podium, going to get into this set of issues at all,” she said. Instead, the White House and the State Department offered a general description of their ties to Pakistan.

“We have an important relationship with Pakistan. We have had enormous successes through our cooperation with Pakistan,” Mr Carney said. “We have also made clear that we have issues with Pakistan at times, and that it is a complicated relationship.”

Ms Nuland completely rejected the assertion that the US was running a campaign against Pakistan.

“We are trying to make the case to the Pakistani people as well as to Pakistani leaders that only working together are we going to defeat this threat (of terrorism) to both of us.”The US, she said, was also trying to publicise the civilian assistance it was giving to strengthen the Pakistani democracy, education system and the economy.

“That is also one of the best deterrents to extremism, when quality of life is being raised for everyone,” she said. When an Indian journalist suggested that most Pakistani hated the US, Ms Nuland urged him to help improve the US image.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/09/ties-with-pakistan-vital-to-security-says-us.html

Pakistanis alone did not create Haqqanis: US

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the Pakistanis have a point when they say that Pakistan alone did not create the Haqqani network, which is now killing American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Also on Sunday, the former US military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, said that attacks on US soldiers in Afghanistan had caused him to blame Pakistan for backing the militants who were behind those attacks.

The transcript of a Q & A session, released by the State Department, quoted Secretary Clinton as saying that the US relationship with Pakistan was critical to the ongoing stability and peace of the region, as well as the fight against terrorism.

“And I think it is important to remind ourselves that Pakistanis have paid a much greater price in the war against terrorism and in the violence perpetrated on them over the last 10 years than, thankfully, we have,” she noted.

“Nearly 30,000 people have been killed — civilians and military, scores of bombing attacks all over the country in places from mosques to markets to universities to police stations.”

Referring to Admiral Mullen’s Senate testimony last week in which he blamed the ISI for encouraging the Haqqani network for attacking US targets in Afghanistan, Secretary Clinton emphasised the need to look at the issue from a historical perspective.

“If you go on YouTube, you can see Sirajuddin Haqqani with President Reagan at the White House,” said the top US diplomat, noting that in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the US government, through the CIA, funded Jihadis like the Haqqanis “to cross the border or to, within Afghanistan, be part of the fight to drive the Soviets out and bring down the Soviet Union”.

“So when I meet for many hours, as I do, with Pakistani officials, they rightly say, ‘You’re the ones who told us to cooperate with these people. You’re the one who funded them. You’re the ones who equipped them. You’re the ones who used them to bring down the Soviet Union by driving them out of Afghanistan. And we are now both in a situation that is highly complex and difficult to extricate ourselves from’. That is how they see it.” The Pakistanis, however, also have used groups in the past to support their ongoing conflict with India over Kashmir, she added.

Secretary Clinton said that when she took charge of her office, the Pakistanis were also trying to basically appease the Pakistani Taliban who were attacking them — trying to draw a distinction between the good terrorists and the bad terrorists.

Since then, the US had been trying to convince the Pakistanis that it was not in their interest to permit terrorists to take over territory and succeeded in encouraging them to deploy troops in Fata.

“So I think it’s important that we appreciate their perspective about where we both are right now,” the secretary said.

“That in no way excuses the fact that they are making a serious, grievous, strategic error supporting these groups,” she added.

That’s why, she said, the US was “pressing and pushing on every lever that we have in the relationship” to achieve its strategic goals.

The aim was to prevent any attacks against the US emanating from Pakistan, as well as to try to help stabilise Pakistan against this internal threat, and to create the best possible circumstances for Afghanistan to be able to have control over its own future.

“Those are all extremely difficult, and we are learning it, each piece of that, every single day,” she said.

In an interview to CNN, Admiral Mullen said what made him go public with his grievances against Pakistan was an increase in attacks on US soldiers and other targets inside Afghanistan. “It’s not just about one country, it’s about both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and part of the biggest challenge is the safe havens that the insurgents enjoy in Pakistan,” he said. The admiral defined the Haqqani network as the most virulent terrorist group in Pakistan and a great supporter of Al Qaeda.

“The link between the Pakistan military and specifically the ISI is very well-known. And I have argued for the need to sever this link,” he added. “That also has to do with getting control of that safe haven.”

Admiral Mullen said that the intensity of the recent events and the strategic support that the ISI and the Pakistan military “both give to the Haqqani network directly and indirectly, is what I was focused on” in the Senate testimony.

When the interviewer insisted on knowing the real reason for the admiral to go public with his complaints against Pakistan, Mr Mullen said: “As a military leader and as somebody who feels responsible for the 2.2 million men and women in uniform, the effort or actions on the part of the Haqqani network to literally kill my people is something I just can’t tolerate anymore.”

He said he did not expect it to stop overnight but “a concerted effort on the part of responsible people could have a big impact”.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/03/pakistanis-alone-did-not-create-haqqanis-us.html