2011 sees US-Pakistan ties go downhill

Year 2011 proved to be a hard time for Pakistan’s foreign policy managers and the foremost challenge that they had to face during all these months was how to improve the strained relationship between Pakistan and the United States which eroded from bad to worse, and by the end of the year, almost reached the break up point.
At the start of 2011 no one could even think about such an impasse in US-Pakistan relations despite the persistent tension since 2001 when the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan to dislodge the Taliban government that it blamed for backing Al Qaeda, which carried out terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Nonetheless, over the past year, the bilateral relationship deteriorated and reached the lowest ebb in the wake of some untoward incidents such as the Raymond Davis episode in January, the US raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2, US allegations that Pakistan supports the Taliban and Haqqani Network, rise in the US drone strikes against alleged terrorist hideouts in the tribal areas, and finally the cross border NATO strike on November 26 in Mohmad Agency, where as many as 24 Pakistani troops were killed.
It was in response to the NATO strike for which Pakistan holds the US responsible that Islamabad announced the blockade of the NATO supply routes to Afghanistan running through the country.
In addition to that Pakistan also asked the US to vacate the Shamsi air base in Balochistan, which was used for drone strikes in the tribal areas. Islamabad also boycotted the Bonn Conference on peace and security in Afghanistan.
The latest development in US-Pakistan ties is that the American army has come up with the findings of its enquiry into the NATO air strikes on two Pakistani border posts but Islamabad has rejected them by saying that the report fell short of facts.
The US wants an early resumption of NATO supplies through Pakistan, but its South Asian ally is not budging from its hard stance of ‘NO’ to any such American demand unless and until there was a firm assurance by Washington that no violation of Islamabad’s sovereignty would occur in future along with an apology by the White House over the killing of Pakistani soldiers.
The US administration is not willing to tender an apology but saying it could take certain measures with the help of Pakistan to prevent such unfortunate incidents in future such as doing away with the improper border coordination between the troops on both sides of the Afghan border that it believes was the main cause of Mohmand Agency’s incident. Meanwhile, all counter-terrorism cooperation between Islamabad and Washington has come to a halt and the diplomatic ties have also received a severe blow. The US officials are now even talking about curtailing relations with Pakistan, instead of broad based economic and defence ties in the months and years to come.
One vital outcome of the current US-Pakistan standoff is Islamabad’s further leaning towards Beijing with efforts being made with renewed vigour to enhance political, economic and defence relations and China has also assured its old friend and neighbour that it will never let it down.
Another important aspect of Pakistan’s foreign policy in 2011 was the recommencement of Pakistan-India peace process, which India had suspended back in November 2008 in the aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks.
The archrival nuclear neighbours concluded their expert level talks on conventional and nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) on Tuesday, with both sides deciding to extend two vital nuclear accords: ‘In advance notification of missile tests’ and the ‘Agreement on Reducing the Risk from Accidents Relating to Nuclear Weapons’ for another five years.
The two sides also reviewed the existing nuclear and conventional CBMs and proposals for additional measures were swapped. Pakistan also came up with an important proposal to remove the cannons from the Line of Control (LoC) in divided Kashmir. The CBMs reviewed at the meeting included hotline between the foreign secretaries, the ceasefire put in place along the LoC since November 2003, and the agreement on advance notification of military exercises.
The two sides also discussed ideas on preventing incidents at sea involving the navies of both countries.
However, the nuclear rivals have yet to settle their major issues like Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and Wullar Barrage despite their talks within the ambit of current peace process since 2004, with a couple years’ suspension back in 2008.
Foreign policy experts believe that unless and until there is resolution of these conflicting issues or at least some concrete movement in that direction, the real improvement in the ties between Islamabad and New Delhi will remain a distant dream.
Still another important facet of the Pakistani foreign policy in 2011 was Islamabad’s efforts to reach out to Russia for developing relations in economic, defence and other sectors after stalemate in ties with the US.
Russia, once an ally of India and always opposed to Pakistan, is now reviewing its policy towards Islamabad and opening up its defence and economy related sectors. One major reason of that is India’s decision to move closer to Washington and start ignoring its old friend, Moscow.
Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders have also seen an opportunity in the lukewarm relations between New Delhi and Moscow at a time when Islamabad is revising its foreign policy and instead of banking totally on the US and other western states, it has decided to reach out to regional actors like China, Russia and Iran to meet its defence and economic challenges in an effective way.
In addition to that, Pakistani foreign policy managers also started fresh efforts in 2011 to cement ties with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other important Arab states in order to avert isolation at global level and to meet the serious economic challenges, especially those in energy sector.