Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has all but ruled out an apology over the NATO’s November airstrike – that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained relations between US and Pakistani — saying it was “time to move on.”
In an interview with a British news agency, Panetta suggested that past expressions of regret and condolences were enough and held out hope that troubled talks on reopening Pakistani supply routes for the NATO war effort could succeed anyway. Asked whether he would oppose any further apology, Panetta said: “We’ve made clear what our position is, and I think it’s time to move on.”
“If we keep going back to the past, if we keep beating up each other based on past differences, we’ll never get anywhere,” he said. “The time now is to move forward with this relationship, on the (supply routes), on the safe havens, on dealing with terrorism — on dealing with the issues that frankly both of us are concerned about,” Panetta said. But the supply line negotiations have become wrapped in a larger debate within Pakistan about what it sees as US violations of its sovereignty, which includes everything from covert CIA drone strikes to the US incursion into Pakistan last year to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
During a trip to Kabul, Panetta, using unusually harsh language, said the United States was reaching the limits of its patience with Pakistan because of the safe havens it offered to insurgents fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan. But in his interview, he appeared to temper those remarks, saying: “It’s a complicated and frustrating relationship. But it’s a necessary relationship and one that we’ve got to continue to work at on both sides.”
Leon Panetta rules out apology for Pakistan
