US wants good counter-terrorism ties with Pakistan

The United States wants a good counter-terrorism relationship with Pakistan as it is in the interests of both the countries, a top American official said today.It is essential that we have a good counter-terrorism relationship with Pakistan and we believe it is in both of our nations interests, Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, said at a special State Department briefing held to announce the creation of Bureau of Counter-terrorism.Answering a question regarding Pak-US relationship, Daniel Benjamin said: “Well, metrics are important, but I don’t think we have metrics for assessing exactly that. There’s no question we’re going through a difficult time in the wake of the cross-border incident and a number of other incidents that have occurred in the last year. But let me go back to basics. We think that it is essential that we have a good counter-terrorism relationship with Pakistan. We believe it is in both of our nations’ interests. No country has suffered more at the hands of militancy than Pakistan.”This bureau, when were doing our job right, is also going to be working closely with Pakistan. We hope to continue building civilian capacity for countering terrorism, which is an essential need there and which was one of the working groups of the strategic dialogue that the secretary created with the Pakistanis and which Im sure is something that we will continue doing. Its in everyones clearest interest, Benjamin said.At the same time, the State Department official said there are issues needs to be worked with Pakistan.We obviously have issues that are being worked out. The Pakistanis are doing their own review within their parliament.But we look forward to resuming some of their collaborative efforts, he said.We are keeping engaged with our post in Islamabad on countering violent extremism, on stability and capacity building, on what we’ve done in the anti-terrorism assistance programme. So we’re not going to make any blanket statements that we’re not cooperating by any means. Absolutely, we’re still working together, he said in response to a question.Responding to questions in reference to killing of top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the region last year, Benjamin said the core al-Qaeda is certainly under greater pressure than it has been at any time since 9/11.But the job is not over, and the work goes on, he said.