Talks between Pakistan and the United on future counterterrorism partnership and other matters have been held up by the impasse over an American apology for the Salala attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing officials from both countries.
The Journal claimed that the US and Pakistani officials have held secret exploratory talks on a new counterterrorism partnership, but that initiative and others are held up by the impasse over an American apology.
According to the newspaper, the dispute over an apology has widening implications.
“It is delaying a deal to reopen critical supply routes for US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in neighboring Afghanistan,” US and Pakistani officials say.
The dispute also makes reaching a deal on counterterrorism cooperation that much harder.
Senior US officials in recent months have quietly sounded out their Pakistani counterparts about negotiating a broad accord intended to give Islamabad a greater role in what has largely been a unilateral US drone campaign against Pakistan-based militants, participants in the preliminary talks say.
The proposals call for a joint military campaign against militants that would incorporate US drones as well as Pakistani F-16s and ground forces, these officials say.
The Central Intelligence Agency, which pilots the hunter-killer drones in Pakistan, invited the new head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam, to Washington last month to discuss counterterrorism cooperation, but the visit was postponed, reflecting the two countries’ fraught relations.
A partnership with Pakistan on counterterrorism operations is critical, advocates say, to ensure that the US can keep the pressure on al Qaeda and its allies as American and international forces gradually pull out of Afghanistan. Without a deal, they say, Pakistan could move to block CIA drone flights.
The newspaper report claimed the Pakistanis have in recent months grown so frustrated with drone strikes that they have explored options to counter the drones, including shooting them down and mounting a legal challenge to the program in the World Court as a violation of international law and of the United Nations Charter, say people familiar with the matter.
Senior US and Pakistani officials acknowledge the difficulty of forging a real counterterrorism partnership given deep-seated Pakistani public opposition to US drone operations.