ISLAMABAD — Visiting US envoy Richard Holbrooke tried to calm tensions with Pakistan on Wednesday, with Islamabad bristling at increased US drone strikes in the northwest and new air passenger screening measures.
Washington has put Pakistan at the heart of its fight against Islamist extremists and US officials say success in the war against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan cannot succeed without Islamabad's support.
But the US drone missile programme in Pakistan's lawless northwest tribal belt along the Afghan border fuels anti-American sentiment in the Muslim nation, with six such strikes hitting the area so far this year.
"People are worried that we see Pakistan only in a regional context. Let me assure all our listeners here that that is simply not the case," Holbrooke, the top US troubleshooter for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told reporters.
"Relations between the United States and Pakistan are better today than they were a year ago. On the other hand there are some obvious and very public issues between the two countries. That's natural. Friends can disagree."
Speaking at the same press conference, Pakistan's foreign minister again raised concerns about the drone strikes, which have killed nearly 700 people in Pakistan since August 2008, and which Islamabad publicly condemns.
"Pakistan feels it will undermine our relations if there are drone attacks," Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, also querying new US air travel procedures launched after a failed bomb plot on Christmas Day.
The US has introduced extra security screening for citizens travelling to the US from 14 nations including Pakistan after a Nigerian tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight by detonating explosives hidden in his underwear.
"The people of Pakistan feel that innocent people are treated like terrorists," Qureshi said.
Holbrooke did not address the issue of the drone strikes, but tried to reassure Pakistan over the US passenger screening measures saying they were necessary and "not discriminatory against the people of Pakistan."
Meanwhile a top Senate ally of President Barack Obama sharply scolded Pakistan's leaders, charging that their public criticism of US drone strikes was at odds with their private acceptance of such attacks.
US Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, fresh from a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan, told reporters on a conference call that Washington would prefer "a silence on their part rather than a public attack on us that creates real problems for us in terms of the Pakistani public and helps create some real animosity" against the United States.
He was speaking from an airport in Dubai as he headed back to Washington.
Pakistan's military has in the past year launched multiple offensives to quash northwest sanctuaries of the Taliban, blamed for most of the attacks in Pakistan which have killed more than 2,900 people since July 2007.
But Washington is pressuring Islamabad to also go after Al-Qaeda-linked groups and militants who primarily use Pakistan's mountainous border zones to plot and launch attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Despite worsening militant violence both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Holbrooke said he did not think insurgent groups were gaining support.
"I do not think that the movement is growing. I think that these actions, while terrible, do not indicate growing strength, they indicate willingness to use extreme measures," he said. AFP
Washington has put Pakistan at the heart of its fight against Islamist extremists and US officials say success in the war against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan cannot succeed without Islamabad's support.
But the US drone missile programme in Pakistan's lawless northwest tribal belt along the Afghan border fuels anti-American sentiment in the Muslim nation, with six such strikes hitting the area so far this year.
"People are worried that we see Pakistan only in a regional context. Let me assure all our listeners here that that is simply not the case," Holbrooke, the top US troubleshooter for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told reporters.
"Relations between the United States and Pakistan are better today than they were a year ago. On the other hand there are some obvious and very public issues between the two countries. That's natural. Friends can disagree."
Speaking at the same press conference, Pakistan's foreign minister again raised concerns about the drone strikes, which have killed nearly 700 people in Pakistan since August 2008, and which Islamabad publicly condemns.
"Pakistan feels it will undermine our relations if there are drone attacks," Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, also querying new US air travel procedures launched after a failed bomb plot on Christmas Day.
The US has introduced extra security screening for citizens travelling to the US from 14 nations including Pakistan after a Nigerian tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight by detonating explosives hidden in his underwear.
"The people of Pakistan feel that innocent people are treated like terrorists," Qureshi said.
Holbrooke did not address the issue of the drone strikes, but tried to reassure Pakistan over the US passenger screening measures saying they were necessary and "not discriminatory against the people of Pakistan."
Meanwhile a top Senate ally of President Barack Obama sharply scolded Pakistan's leaders, charging that their public criticism of US drone strikes was at odds with their private acceptance of such attacks.
US Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, fresh from a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan, told reporters on a conference call that Washington would prefer "a silence on their part rather than a public attack on us that creates real problems for us in terms of the Pakistani public and helps create some real animosity" against the United States.
He was speaking from an airport in Dubai as he headed back to Washington.
Pakistan's military has in the past year launched multiple offensives to quash northwest sanctuaries of the Taliban, blamed for most of the attacks in Pakistan which have killed more than 2,900 people since July 2007.
But Washington is pressuring Islamabad to also go after Al-Qaeda-linked groups and militants who primarily use Pakistan's mountainous border zones to plot and launch attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Despite worsening militant violence both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Holbrooke said he did not think insurgent groups were gaining support.
"I do not think that the movement is growing. I think that these actions, while terrible, do not indicate growing strength, they indicate willingness to use extreme measures," he said. AFP
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