Washington
13 June 2008
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have hit some bumpy spots over efforts to curb terrorist acts by Islamic extremists. The rocky relationship was recently highlighted with the accidental deaths of 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in a U.S. airstrike along the porous border with Afghanistan. As VOA correspondent Gary Thomas reports, the issue of terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan is an increasing irritant between Washington and Islamabad.
Both the previous military government of General Pervez Musharraf and the new civilian government have opted at various times to try to secure peace deals with tribal leaders to contain the militants. Echoing the RAND report, General Dan McNeill, who just relinquished his post as NATO commander in Afghanistan, says such deals only feed cross-border attacks, not curtail them.
"I think what's missing is action to keep pressure on the insurgents," he explained. "Because certainly when there had been pressure on the insurgents, and then we run the operations we run on our side of the border, the untoward events tend to go down. When there are talks, especially when these talks culminate in a peace deal -- I mean, we've got clear evidence in numbers that the untoward events on the Afghan side of the border go up."
But Ambassador Haqqani rejects the notion that the peace deals fuel militant activity.
"After March 2008 the government has put its foot down and said that while we want engagement with our tribal elders and tribal leaders, there will be no agreements that do not forbid attacks on either side of the border, inside Afghanistan or in Pakistan," he said. "And no agreements have taken place without that guarantee."
Speaking at the NATO summit in Brussels, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that even though there is unease in the U.S. government about such deals, the new Pakistan government must be given a chance to find its way.
"I think it's fair to say that we have some skepticism, based on past experience, whether some of these agreements will work out," he noted. "But I think that we have to give - it's their country - and we have to give them the chance to try to deal with it in the way that they think is best."
The RAND Corporation report says the major flaw in such peace deals is that there is no mechanism to enforce them.