Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director David Petraeus is likely to visit Islamabad soon in a bid to reach an ‘Agreement on Intelligence Cooperation’ with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) after the recently made vital pact on the reopening of NATO supplies.
The pact on intelligence cooperation, if made, will formalize the process of intelligence sharing between the ISI and CIA. However, the presence of US intelligence operatives on Pakistani soil in the future and that too in unspecified number was said to be the main hurdle in any formal agreement on intelligence cooperation. Pakistan is against the presence of large and unspecified number of CIA operatives on its soil and it may allow very limited number of people and that too in a complete transparent way, the main purpose of which would be to facilitate intelligence sharing only.
“The US will have to inform Pakistan about the presence of its intelligence operatives in future if it wants a formal pact on intelligence cooperation,” said a diplomatic source, seeking anonymity.
He said that during the visit of CIA director to Islamabad, which is expected soon, discussions would take place on the pact on intelligence cooperation along with other matters of mutual interest. The CIA chief will make a visit to Islamabad after the trip to Washington by ISI Director General Zaheerul Islam earlier this month.
General Zaheer met his CIA counterpart and other US officials during his three-day stay in Washington. It is after months of tensions that Pakistan and US are trying to open a new phase of engagement. The relations between the two important states in anti-terrorism global campaign were at all time low until a month ago when Pakistan decided to reopen the stalled NATO supplies in the wake of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s apology for the loss of 24 Pakistani soldiers in American airstrikes on the Pakistani border checkpost in Salala in November.
“The US believes that increase in the level of intelligence cooperation with Pakistan is vital for the success of its counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and this is why it wants a formal pact in this regard,” the source said.
He said another important issue for Pakistan was to settle the case of drone strikes in the Tribal Areas at the earliest and the matter would be discussed with CIA chief during his upcoming visit.
Pakistan has proposed the US give it F-16 fighter jets equipped with smart weapons to target the militants, but the US is not willing to stop the attacks by spy planes in the Tribal Areas. A security official said Pakistan was fully committed to counter-terrorism efforts in the region and for that it had always extended all out support to the US, but the problem was that its role had been doubted by Washington, which should not have been the case. On prospects of ‘joint operation’ with US in North Waziristan or an all out military operation by Pakistan Army in the tribal agency, the officials said any operation in any tribal area in the country would be by Pakistan’s own security forces and no foreign boots would be allowed for the purpose.
He said Pakistan had gone for selected actions in North Waziristan against terrorists, but any major offensive there was unlikely owing to constraints that the army faced with its engagements in several tribal regions.