Pak confused over identifying real threat: US

I / Washington May 2, 2009, 13:10 IST

With the Taliban becoming emboldened in Pakistan, the US has said the civilian and military leadership of that country, which had for long viewed India as its prime threat, was confused with regard to identifying the real danger facing the Islamic state.    

"In Pakistan, it's a very difficult environment because of the confusion among the civilian and military leadership about how to prioritise what is the greatest threat to Pakistan going forward," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a Town Hall meeting held on the occasion of Foreign Affairs Day yesterday.    

Her comments came a day after President Barack Obama, while voicing concern over situation in Pakistan, said that Islamabad was beginning to recognise that viewing India as a "mortal threat" was misguided.    

"You're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally," Obama had said. 
 

Ahead of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai's first trilateral summit with Obama to be held next week, Clinton said the meeting will see "very intense sessions" on the specifics of the goals.     "

They will meet -- we've had one of these already which we thought was quite helpful in beginning to change mindsets and, frankly, set forth some requirements about what we expect from these governments," said Clinton.    

This will be the second trilateral meeting among three countries. The first held in March was at the level of Foreign Ministers. "The President will meet with both of his counterparts, and we'll have some very intense sessions on the specifics of what we're trying to accomplish," she said.

Washington is wary about its bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani policies, so Obama administration officials say they are not trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Zardari and Sharif.  

But they say that both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard C Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan had both urged Zardari and Sharif to look ways to work together, seeking to capitalise  on former Prime Minister's appeal among the Islamist groups, the times said.  

"The President's popularity is in the double digit now. Nawaz Sharif is at 83 per cent. They need to band together against the Militants", the newspaper quoted the officials as reflecting.  

"There certainly is no agreement that Nawaz should become Zardari's Prime Minister", the officials said. But he added, " We need  people who have influence over the militancy in Pakistan to calm it down, Who's got influence? The army, yes... And Nawaz yes".