US ready to get back to business with Pakistan, Clinton tells Khar

The United States is “ready to get back to business” with Pakistan after a diplomatic row following a cross-border NATO attack on Pakistani troops, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
According to Economic Times, Clinton told this to Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who is on an official visit to the UK, on the sidelines of the London Conference on Somalia to iron out differences between the two countries. According to reports, Pakistan Ambassador to US Sherry Rehman was also present during the meeting.
“We respect parliament’s right to … take time to do this in a sensible way, but we had to get ready to get back into business with Pakistan” on bilateral counter-terrorism issues including Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said Clinton told Khar. He said the US would respect the parliamentary review but wanted to prepare for a return to “structured conversations”.
The official said Clinton also told Khar that the administration wanted to resume high-level visits to Pakistan by aid officials and Marc Grossman, the top diplomatic envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Both the leaders discussed issues related to mutual interest.
Clinton’s luncheon with Khar was among the few high-level contacts between the two countries since the November deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border US air raid from Afghanistan. While Khar told Clinton that Pakistan would welcome a return to working with the United States, the official did not sugar-coat the difficulties of rebuilding the relationship after what is expected to be tough recommendations from parliament.
Before her meeting with Clinton, Khar told reporters parliament was currently looking at “terms of re-engagement” with the United States.
“We hope that, for the goals that we share that of peace and stability within the region, Pakistan and the United States will be able to foster their ties. However, there are certain pre-conditions for that,” Khar said. She said the United States should work to establish a “predictable, transparent and sustainable” relationship with Pakistan based on both countries’ mutual interest. In the past, “a different type of relationship has been pursued in the dark of night and a different type in daylight,” Khar said. “We hope to be able to combine the two and bring this relationship credibility (in the eyes of) the people of Pakistan.”