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Summary Pakistan has welcomed idea of resuming cooperation with United States, a senior U.S. official said.
The official gave an upbeat assessment of talks between the U.S. and Pakistani foreign ministers designed to help repair relations pushed deep into crisis by an incident in November when U.S. aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar that the United States fully respected the Pakistani parliaments need to review relations carefully but also stressed the need to resume joint work.Clinton told Khar that we had to get ready to get back into business with Pakistan and that that was particularly important (on) areas such as counter-terrorism, working together on some of the regional questions, very much to include Afghanistan, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.The foreign minister was very welcoming of that, the U.S. official added as he briefed on the ministers one-hour, 15-minute meeting in London, where Clinton is attending aconference on Somalia.The United States sees Pakistan as critical to its efforts to wind down the war in neighbouring Afghanistan, where U.S.-led NATO forces are battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency.Before the London talks, Khar urged Washington on Tuesday to establish a predictable, transparent and sustainable relationship with Pakistan, adding that parliament was currently looking at terms of re-engagement with the United States.Clinton raised the possibility of a series of U.S. officials going to Pakistan once the review is complete to discuss, among other things, what kind of aid the United States may continue to give the Pakistani government, the U.S. official said.They could include special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman, Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who oversees the State Departments aid budget, and Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.We respect the parliaments right to consider U.S.-Pakistan relations, we certainly respect the parliaments right to take the time to do this in a sensible way, the U.S. official said.--Agencies
