US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that blacklisting Haqqani Network does not mean to send a message to Pakistan that they’re not doing enough.
In an interview to foreign media, Clinton said that it was about squeezing Haqqanis in the ways that now were available to us under the designation and the Executive Order. It gave us much greater reach into any financial assets or fundraising that they might engage in, gave us better traction against assets that they might own, she added.
She said US thought it added to the pressure on the Haqqanis, and it was part of the continuing effort to try to send a message to them – not to anybody else, but to them – because of the really incredibly damaging attacks that they had waged against us, against other targets, and inside Afghanistan. And it was important that we used every tool at our disposal to go after them, she added.
She said that US did very intensive analysis before designating someone as a foreign terrorist organisation. US had reached that conclusion about the Haqqani Network and thought it was the right decision, she said further.
On Iran Nuclear programme, Clinton said that US thought we had maintained a steady course of our two-pronged policy. US had always said every option was on the table, but we believed in the negotiation, the diplomatic effort through the P-5+1, but also pressure. And we were working to increase that pressure, she added.
The sanctions, we knew, were having an effect. The efforts that the P-5+1 had made to pin Iran down on what exactly they were willing to do were still underway, and we would be having some meetings in the next month in New York and elsewhere to take stock of where we were, she said, adding, “So I think it’s a very challenging effort to get them to move in a way that complies with their international obligations, but we believe that is still, by far, the best approach to take at this time.”
She said that US was not setting deadlines for Iran but watching very carefully about what they were doing, because it was always been more about their actions and their words.
She said further that US message to Iran had been very clear, and the Israelis had supported us through the last three and a half years, that we had to unite the international community, we had to put the most intensive sanctions we could possibly get, both through the international community and then unilateral by the United States, by the Europeans, and others.
Responding to the trip to China, Clinton said that China had a very large presence, now the second biggest economy in the world. “So what we do with China is always going to be very carefully followed and analysed. So the methods are not so dissimilar. The challenges at this point in time are much more at front and center because of the growing importance of the role that China’s playing economically and politically.”
She said everything US did had been to construct a framework of cooperation in the region with China, ensuring our presence and our position now and into the future.
