The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) chief, General James N Mattis, who is expected to visit Pakistan in a week, will give final shape to ‘new terms of engagement’ on counter-terrorism between Islamabad and Washington during his talks with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and other army leaders. The new terms of engagement between the two major allies in the global anti-terrorism campaign include the ‘understanding’ on drone attacks, reopening of blocked NATO supply routes, which were closed by Islamabad in the wake of US/NATO air strikes on Pakistani border posts last November, presence of American military trainers on Pakistani soil and other disputed matters.
The New York Times also reported on Tuesday that in his visit, General Mattis would meet General Kayani to discuss the investigations of the NATO attack, as well as new border coordination procedures to prevent a recurrence of the episode.
General Mattis’s visit, the first by a high-ranking American official since the cross-border confrontation in November, was to have begun Thursday, but had been postponed by at least a week pending what was expected to be a spirited debate in parliament over a new security policy toward the US, said the Times. A Pakistani security official confirmed here on condition of anonymity that the US CENTCOM chief would come to Pakistan in around a week. “His coming to Pakistan itself suggests the thawing of relations between Islamabad and Washington as earlier, owing to strained ties, the two sides had stopped the trips of their civilian and military officials to each other’s capitals,” he said. He said after days-long hectic behind the scenes efforts, both countries had been able to accommodate each other’s views on various issues and now a final shape was to be given to the future rules of engagements between Pakistan and the US during the visit of General Mattis. According to official, the new terms of engagement covered the understanding on the most contentious issue of drone strikes, whereby the US would have to limit the number of these attacks to a great extent and only a very few such strikes could be carried out and only after intelligence information was provided by Pakistani officials about terrorists’ hideouts, that too in a narrow region of the tribal belt.
Moreover, he said, the NATO supply lines would also be reopened with taxation being imposed on all containers crossing into Afghanistan but before that, the US would come up with a formal public apology on NATO air strikes in Mohmand Agency. “The number of US military trainers, which was earlier in the dozens, would be reduced to only a few and that too attached to the very essential programmes. The US would also have to inform Pakistan completely about the presence and activities of any CIA operatives on Pakistani soil,” the official said. Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, in an interview to a TV channel on Tuesday, also reportedly said Pakistan should reopen its Afghan border crossings to NATO troop supplies after negotiating a better deal with the coalition. He said that the government should negotiate new “terms and conditions” with NATO and then reopen the border. A Pakistani diplomat also confirmed the thaw in Pakistan-US relations, saying General Mattis’s visit to Islamabad was very significant in this regard. “It is most likely that the ongoing parliamentary review of future ties with US also ends in around a week with a joint session of parliament giving a final shape to the recommendations in the form of a unanimous resolution and thus paving the way for the normalisation of ties between Islamabad and Washington and the revival of full counter-terrorism cooperation,” he said. The New York Times report also said Pakistani and American officials were quietly optimistic that both events would trigger a chain of public engagement and private negotiations that would reboot the two nations’ frayed strategic relationship, although along more narrowly defined lines than before. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland would not comment on the proposal to apologise on Monday, said the report, adding that American election politics were also on the mind of Pakistani strategists. A senior security official in Islamabad, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the issue, told the Times the military was cognizant of President Barack Obama’s domestic political constraints, and noted that Pakistan might also have elections this year, probably in the fall.