Pakistan army rejects reports of US Military trainers in Pakistan

Pakistan Army on Thursday rejected media report about the return of the United States (US) military trainers into Pakistan, media reported on Thursday.

Earlier, a wire service reported that the US trainers, which were sent back from Pakistan after Salala attack, have returned to Pakistan, in a sign the two nations may be able to achieve some low-level cooperation against militants despite a string of confrontations that have left Washington’s relations with Islamabad in crisis.

Quoting a US official the report observed, “Fewer than 10 US special operations soldiers have been sent to a training site near the border city of Peshawar, where they will instruct trainers from Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency warfare”.

The number of American military instructors in Pakistan dropped to zero after US aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in late November. The official said he would call this a watershed moment but it was not insignificant that this was happening.

“There’s a lot more we want to do to improve it, but (the trainers’ return) is an important sign that at least in some areas we’re getting a healthy sense of normalcy”, he added.

The picture is less encouraging on cooperation between US and Pakistani intelligence, which several American officials said remained dire as Pakistani officials resist easing restrictions on issuing visas to US intelligence personnel.

In retaliation for the border deaths, Pakistan also shut down ground supply routes crucial for keeping US and Nato soldiers equipped in neighboring Afghanistan, and clamped down on US military personnel operating in Pakistan.

Normalcy is relative when it comes to relations between the United States and Pakistan, which are nominally allied against the Taliban but have been frequently pitted against each other in a string of mutual recriminations.

Those include Pakistan’s jailing of a Pakistani doctor who helped the United States hunt down Osama bin Laden last year, as well as the US raid that killed bin Laden, which Islamabad was not informed of beforehand.

At a Nato summit in Chicago this month, President Barack Obama snubbed his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, by refusing to hold a meeting with him because Pakistan had not reopened the supply routes.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on May 31 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.