US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday renewed her call on Pakistan to close safe havens for militants, saying the uneasy partner must be “unequivocal” in its approach.
Testifying before the US Congress after a trip to the region, Clinton said she delivered a “frank” message to Pakistan that it was urgent to act against the extremist Haqqani network, which she blamed for anti-US attacks in Afghanistan.
“I explained that trying to distinguish between so-called good terrorists and bad terrorists is ultimately self-defeating and dangerous,” Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “No one who targets innocent civilians of any nationality should be tolerated or protected,” she added.
“We look to Pakistan to encourage the Taliban and other insurgents to participate in an Afghan peace process in good faith – both through unequivocal public statements and by closing off the safe havens,” she said.
‘DO MORE’: Clinton also said Pakistan should do more to punish militants over the 2008 Mumbai attacks but stopped short of making it a condition in ties with Washington. She said the US was speaking to both India and Pakistan about Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which investigators say carried out the bloodbath that killed 166 people.
“Every time we meet with the Pakistanis, we press them on LeT, about the continuing failure – in our view – to fulfill all of the requirements necessary for prosecution related to the Mumbai attacks, and we will continue to do so,” Clinton said.
US AWARE: Separately, in an interview with a British news channel, the top US diplomat said the US was aware that some elements in Pakistan were supporting the Taliban. She said it was more difficult to say that the people at the top were fully aware as it was to say that they were both current and retired members of the intelligence service who either had militant sympathies or viewed the use of these organisations as a hedging against their own instability or attacks from somewhere else.
Clinton said the US was well aware of what had been going on but it also knew that stability and security in Afghanistan required that the neighbours, including Iran, Pakistan, the Central Asian countries, India, Russia and China, all had to be invested in a stable, secure Afghanistan.
US again calls for ‘unequivocal’ action on militants
