Pakistani, US military top brass hold first post-Salala meeting

Two top US military officials on Wednesday held crucial meetings with the Pakistani military leadership and demanded an early reopening of NATO supply routes, a contentious issue currently being debated in the joint session of parliament convened to discuss the recommendations prepared by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) on ‘future terms of engagement’ with the United States.
The American military officials, General James N Mattis, commander US Central Command and General John Allen, commander ISAF, also discussed with Pakistan’s military leaders some vital proposals to resolve the row between Islamabad and Washington over the drone strikes in Tribal Areas.
US has offered Pakistan to slash the list of targets for drone attacks in the Tribal Areas and limit it only to top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, instead of hitting all miscreants and that too when those few attacks are approved by Pakistani authorities. General Mattis and General John Allen, who arrived on a surprise visit amidst debate in the parliament over review of relations with the US, first called on General Khalid Shameem Wynne, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and met Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani later in the evening to discuss ways to improve strained bilateral relations.
General Kayani told the visiting US military officials that the NATO attack on Pakistani checkposts in Mohmand Agency last year was an assault on Pakistan’s sovereignty and there must be an unconditional apology on part of US for that, according to officials privy to the talks.General Mattis was earlier asked by Pakistani authorities to put off his visit until the completion of parliamentary review of Pakistan-US relations and his visit now to Islamabad before that suggested the thaw in relations between the two major countries in anti-terrorism global alliance.
It is also significant that the US military officials visited Islamabad in the wake of important meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in Seoul recently on the sidelines of an international summit on nuclear security. “General James N Mattis and General John Allen remained with General Wynne for some time and discussed bilateral matters professional interests, and the emerging geo strategic situation of the region,” said a brief ISPR statement. Earlier, another ISPR statement only stated that US military officials would call later in the day on General Kayani to discuss cross border coordination and investigations into ‘Salala post’ attack by NATO aircraft.
The meeting between visiting American generals and the army chief took place late in the evening, but there was no official version of what transpired in the crucial talks. Nonetheless, a security official said the US military officials asked for early reopening of blocked NATO supply routes saying delay in this regard was causing harm to ongoing counter-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan. “General Kayani told the US officials that the matter is now before the parliament which will decide about the resumption of NATO supplies, so the US needs to wait until that happens,” the official said.
Another Pakistani official, who sought anonymity, said that the US officials also discussed with Pakistani military officials the differences over drone strikes and proposed that drone attacks could be limited and only the top militants’ leadership would be hit in future instead of targeting all alleged terrorists in the tribal areas. “Pakistan Army leadership, however, told the US officials that drone strikes had proven to be counter-productive so they need to be stopped,” he said.