US attempts to allay fears in Pakistan (From Asian Image)

US attempts to allay fears in Pakistan

11:51am Friday 22nd January 2010

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America has no designs on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or “a single inch of Pakistani soil”, US defence secretary Robert Gates has told the country’s military.

Mr Gates told officers at Pakistan’s National Defence University in Islamabad that fighting terrorists along the Afghan border was in Pakistan’s interest as well as Washington’s.

”We have enemies in common along the border, but we also have many other interests in common,” Mr Gates said, and the Pakistani military had choices to make about its resources and focus just as the US armed forces had done.

Addressing the legacy of mistrust and what he called an “organised propaganda campaign” to misrepresent US intentions, Mr Gates used carefully-calibrated phrasing to tick off some of the allegations against the US in wide circulation in Pakistan.

”I fully understand why some of you may be sceptical about the US commitment to Pakistan,” he said.

The US wants Pakistan to take on Taliban militants who use its territory as a refuge, but Mr Gates’ rhetoric on the subject during two days of talks in the Pakistani capital was notably mild.

He said he was deeply impressed with Pakistan’s military offensive against militants within its borders.

”The leadership will make the decisions” about when or whether they are going to do something. “That’s just fine with me,” he said during an interview with Pakistani and US journalists.

Asked whether the US was winning in the long battle against al Qaida terrorism, Mr Gates said the US had made progress but had not won yet. He said al Qaida and what he called a syndicate of affiliated groups were less capable of large-scale, co-ordinated attacks than before and in many cases their leadership had been killed or captured.

The Obama administration has taken a softer tone with Pakistan in recent months, praising the country’s unprecedented assault on militants inside its borders and dropping public appeals for the country to focus on the militants along its western border.

In his speech to military officers, Mr Gates said the US sought no military bases in the country and had no desire to control Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

”The US does not covet a single inch of Pakistani soil,” he said.

The Pakistani army launched a major ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban’s main stronghold near the Afghan border in mid-October, triggering a wave of retaliatory violence across the country that has killed more than 600 people.

Washington believes Pakistani pressure on militants staging cross-border attacks against coalition troops in Afghanistan is critical to success in Afghanistan as it sends an additional 30,000 troops to the country this year.

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