Troika meets to review ties with United States

The top political and military brass put their heads together to find out for the way ahead in stalled dialogue process with the United States for resetting bilateral ties, but it failed to bring any positive outcome.

The deadlock on resuming relations with the United States lies on two different fronts, between Islamabad and Washington and between Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The troika meeting made little progress beyond concurring that the relations were too critical to be left in oblivion.

It was a third sitting of the civil and military leaderships within two weeks. However, this meeting was not different from the previous two and failed to take any decision regarding reopening of land routes for NATO supplies and attending a summit in Chicago later this month.

President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, ISI’s Director General Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam, key federal ministers and Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman attended the meeting that lasted several hours.

Commenting about the meeting an official observed, “We discussed various formulations for the demands to be made from the US, including the text of a possible apology statement that would not only be acceptable to us, but would also help the Americans overcome their reluctance in apologizing”.

The first round of formal talks between the US and Pakistan last week did not work out because of the US insistence on not discussing stoppage of drone strikes and refusing to make public apology for the Salala attack.

According to the media reports, the Pakistani side started working on a text of a statement that could be acceptable to both Pakistan and the US.

An expert on foreign affairs commented that it was election year here and in the United States that is what is making thing complex.

After developing a consensus at home, the text of the proposed apology statement would be shared to the Americans asking them to announce it so that the two sides could continue the dialogue process.

According to the proposed text, the US would accept responsibility for the deadly strikes, though mild in language than a direct apology. It has been endorsed by the civilian leaders, while the army is said to be studying it.

Apart from the attack on Salala check-posts, the meeting spent significant time discussing the new terms for the re-opening of NATO supply-line including imposition of new taxes, which is being termed the opportunity cost.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=21304

Posted by Faisal Farooq on May 3 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.