Pakistan is reviewing future cooperation with the US as relations flounder between the shaky allies in the wake of a deadly NATO strike, senior military and government officials said on Tuesday. Showing the deep mistrust between the two countries whose cooperation focuses on the US-led war in Afghanistan, a senior security official speaking anonymously said “lines should be drawn” in all future ties. “This is what experience from the recent turn of events suggests,” he said.
“From now on, every understanding will be in black and white. We will ensure that everything is well documented.” US-Pakistani relations have nosedived since the secret raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May and US air strikes on November 26 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan has rejected the findings of a joint US-NATO investigation that concluded that errors on both sides led to the soldiers’ deaths. “The parliamentary committee is reviewing the state of the relationship with the US and the kind of relationship that we should have with Washington in future,” said a senior government official privy to developments. “One thing that I can say is that the relationship in future will be transparent and there will be new terms of engagement with the US in counter-terrorism.”
According to a report in the New York Times, US officials believe the counterterrorism alliance can survive only in a limited form, complicating the ability to launch attacks against Islamic extremists based in Pakistan and move supplies into Afghanistan.
Analyst and retired general Talat Masood said that the authorities had concluded that a more limited relationship was the best way forward.
“I think the army has come to the conclusion that neither the people of Pakistan are satisfied with what has been happening nor is the US satisfied” with the alliance agreed by former President Pervez Musharraf, said Masood.
