Pak realises terrorism is boomerang: US

Ashton Carter says he told the Pakistan leadership the principal threat to it is terrorism, not neighbours

A senior American official has said that Pakistan, which flirted over time with using terrorism as an instrument of state policy, has realised that terror is a boomerang which comes back "when you try to use it for your own purposes."

Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter said that he clearly told the Pakistan leadership that the principal threat to it is terrorism, not its neighbours.

Addressing the audience at the Center for American Progress, an Washington-based eminent think-tank, Carter said he has also told the Indian leadership to "reciprocate" the peace overtures of the Pakistani leadership.

"I was frank with my interlocutors in Delhi that the United States supports Pakistani efforts to improve their bilateral relations and hope Delhi will reciprocate," he said yesterday, a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York.

Carter was in India and in Afghanistan a few weeks ago wherein he met the top leadership of both the countries.

"In my conversations with both Pakistani and Indian leaders, I conveyed that over the last year, the United States and Pakistan have each worked hard to improve our bilateral defense relations," Carter said.

The US, he said, looks forward to maintaining that positive trajectory in its relationship with Pakistan.

"I relate our support for Prime Minister Sharif's work to improve civil-military relations in Pakistan. I also noted that as he does that, the government of Pakistan is focusing on what we believe are his two highest priorities, namely, first, that Pakistan's continued economic development is central to its security and to the security of the region."

He applauded the steps taken by Sharif to revitalise Pakistan's economy.

"I was honest with my hosts in Islamabad in terms of how Pakistan must achieve peaceful relations with India on the east in order to reap the benefits of cross-border trade, if it's truly to develop its economy," he said.

"It needs a secure and stable Afghanistan on the west for the same reason. I was equally frank with my interlocutors in Delhi that the United States supports Pakistani efforts to improve their bilateral relations and hope Delhi will reciprocate," the Deputy Defense Secretary said.