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Summary US military planned to make a formal apology for Salala strike via telephone to Pak Army Chief.
America has planned to move past that case, and re-boot diplomatic relations, were stymied this week by riots in Afghanistan set off after Qurans were burned at the Afghanistan NATO base on Monday night.Under a carefully coordinated plan, the US military had planned for Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to make a formal apology for the American strike via telephone to Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, on Thursday, according to a Defense Department official.But the plan was upset by the explosion of violent rioting in Afghanistan.Obama administration officials quickly calculated that too many regrets at once would hand fresh ammunition to Republican presidential candidates, the official added.A senior Pakistani official said his government also wanted the American apology to be delayed until at least mid-March, when the Pakistani Parliament is due to hold a special sitting to debate the country’s policy toward America.The complex diplomatic dance will also affect the fledgling Taliban talks process. Michael Semple, a Afghanistan expert and former adviser to the European Union mission in Kabul, said Mr. Gilani’s statement on Friday was more about politicsthan talks.“This is about Pakistan, Afghanistan and America — not the Taliban,” he said.But, he added, rhetoric alone was not sufficient to jump-start the talks process, and in the meantime all players were running out of time to make peace.“There’s all sorts of things the Pakistanis can do to move towards reconciliation, but a statement won’t convince anyone it is actually happening,” he said. “Reconciliation is doable, but the time to do it is in 2012. And I don’t think the current trajectory will get us there.”
