Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew into Pakistan for talks yesterday, stepping up pressure on Islamabad to dismantle Taliban safe havens as US troops pressed an offensive along the border.
Mrs Clinton spoke in unusually strong language following a meeting in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai a month after his peace broker was assassinated, derailing any immediate prospect of reconciliation with the Taliban.
She warned the Taliban to be part of a peaceful future or face a continuing assault, but urged Islamabad to play a “constructive” role in bringing militants to negotiations aimed at ending the 10-year war in Afghanistan.
“And now it’s a question as to how much cooperation Pakistanis will provide in going after those safe havens,” she said.
“We intend to push the Pakistanis very hard as to what they are willing and able to do with us... to remove the safe havens and the continuing threats across the border to Afghans,” said Mrs Clinton.
She warned militants that “we are going to seek you in your safe havens” on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border and confirmed a US operation against the hardline Haqqani network it blames for some of the worst war attacks.
“There was a major military operation inside Afghanistan in recent days that has been rounding up and eliminating Haqqani operatives on this side of the border,” Mrs Clinton told reporters in a leafy plaza of Karzai’s palace.
She later flew into Pakistan where top US military officer Martin Dempsey also arrived for the talks, according to a US defence official. US officials also say CIA chief David Petraeus will join the American delegation. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would meet Mrs Clinton before talks with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar today, a Pakistani official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Policy makers in Islamabad disagree with US strategy, believing that military operations are of limited use and that now is the time to concentrate on a comprehensive reconciliation ahead of a Nato withdrawal in 2014.
Pakistani-US relations have dramatically deteriorated this year over the May 2 unilateral raid that killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad and accusations over a US embassy siege in Kabul last month that dragged on 19 hours.
Dempsey’s predecessor Admiral Mike Mullen called the Haqqani network the “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and accused Pakistani spies of being involved in the siege.
US commanders say the Haqqanis are their most potent enemy in eastern Afghanistan and increasingly capable of attacking in Kabul.
But in what Pakistanis are likely to interpret as a contradiction, Mrs Clinton said her talks will focus on “how to increase pressure on the safe havens” while urging Pakistan to support efforts at negotiations.
“We believe that they can play either a constructive or a destructive role in helping to bring into talks those with whom the Afghans themselves must sit across the table and hammer out a negotiated settlement,” she said.
“We will be looking to the Pakistanis to take the lead because the terrorists operating outside of Pakistan pose a threat to Pakistanis, as well as to Afghans and others,” she said.