[The two countries at
least are relieved to have started talking. A series of visits and discussions
in recent weeks included a meeting between Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Yousaf
Raza Gilani on the sidelines of a nuclear summit meeting in Seoul, South Korea,
last month. Since the Pakistani Parliament completed a review of relations with
the United States, Americans have repeatedly vowed to respect the will of Pakistan’s
lawmakers, even though they demanded an end to American drone strikes, which
the United States sees as crucial in fighting militants hiding in Pakistan’s
border areas.]
By Declan Walsh, Eric Schmitt And Steven Lee Myers
 |
Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Protesters with the Defense Council of Pakistan demonstrated in
Quetta against reopening NATO supply lines into Afghanistan.
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The first concentrated high-level talks aimed at breaking a
five-month diplomatic deadlock between the United States and Pakistan ended in
failure on Friday over Pakistani demands for an unconditional apology from the
Obama administration for an airstrike. The White House, angered by the recent
spectacular Talibanattacks in Afghanistan, refuses to
apologize.
The Obama
administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, left
the Pakistani capital Friday night with no agreement after two days of
discussions aimed at patching up the damage caused by the American airstrikes
last November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghanistan border.
Both sides insist that
they are now ready to make up and restore an uneasy alliance that at its best
offers support for American efforts in Afghanistan as well as the battle
against some extremist groups operating from Pakistan. The administration had
been seriously debating whether to say “I’m sorry” to the Pakistanis’
satisfaction — until April 15, when multiple, simultaneous attacks struck
Kabul and other Afghan cities.
“What changed was the
15th of April,” said a senior administration official.
American military and
intelligence officials concluded the attacks came at the direction of a group
working from a base in North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal belt: the Haqqani network, an
association of border criminals and smugglers that has mounted lethal attacks
on foreign forces in Afghanistan. That confirmed longstanding American mistrust
about Pakistani intentions — a poison that infects nearly every other aspect of
the strained relationship. That swung the raging debate on whether Mr. Obama or
another senior American should go beyond the expression of regret that the
administration had already given, and apologize.
The negotiations are
complicated by a complex web of interlocking demands from both sides. Without
the apology, Pakistani officials say they cannot reopen NATO supply
routes into Afghanistan that have been closed since November.
The Americans, in turn,
are withholding between $1.18 billion and $3 billion of promised military aid —
the exact figure depending on which side is speaking.
The continuing deadlock
does not bode well for Pakistan’s attendance at a NATO meeting in Chicago in
three weeks, assuming it is even invited. The administration has been eager to
cast the event as a regional security summit meeting, and Pakistan’s absence
would be embarrassing.
Administration officials
acknowledged Friday that the stalemate would not be resolved quickly. “This is
the beginning of the re-engagement conversation,” Victoria Nuland, the State
Department spokeswoman, said in Washington. “We’re going to have to work
through these issues, and it’s going to take some time.”
The two countries at
least are relieved to have started talking. A series of visits and discussions
in recent weeks included a meeting between Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Yousaf
Raza Gilani on the sidelines of a nuclear summit meeting in Seoul, South Korea,
last month. Since the Pakistani Parliament completed a review of relations with
the United States, Americans have repeatedly vowed to respect the will of Pakistan’s
lawmakers, even though they demanded an end to American drone strikes, which
the United States sees as crucial in fighting militants hiding in Pakistan’s
border areas.
Aside from the
apparently intractable issues of drones and the apology, the two countries
focused on four specific areas of potential cooperation: counterterrorism, the
NATO supply lines, military aid payments and the Taliban peace process.
Yet there was an
undeniable sense of wariness, driven by the pressures of domestic politics,
with Mr. Obama facing re-election this year and Pakistan due for elections in
the coming 12 months. Pakistanis’ rage has been rising since a shooting in
Lahore in January 2011 that involved a C.I.A. employee and fueled common
fantasies about being overrun by rogue spies. The American operation to kill
Osama bin Laden a few months later was taken as a stunning breach of Pakistan’s
sovereignty.
An American apology is
also problematic given Republican pressures weighing on Mr. Obama and the
hostility of a Congress with little patience for Pakistan. “The politics of
election year in both countries are slowing down the resolution of admittedly
vexed issues in an environment of persistent mistrust,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a
former Pakistani ambassador to Washington.
The Haqqani network has
re-emerged as a focal American issue, particularly after the April 15 attacks.
The next day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Pakistan’s foreign
minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, that “there has to be a concerted effort by the
Pakistanis with the Afghans, with the others of us, against extremists of all
kinds.”
American officials
refused Friday to say whether there were any links between Pakistan’s main spy
agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, and the Haqqani
network’s latest attacks. One said the intelligence on the issue was
“constantly evolving.” Others in Washington say they have not yet found any
such ties.
New details about the
attacks have emerged in the past two weeks, according to Afghan and American
officials. While it is possible that some fighters were smuggled into
Afghanistan over time and in small numbers, and that some weapons and
ammunition were pre-staged, many may have been brought in from Pakistan only a
day or two before the attacks, said a senior American military officer in
Afghanistan.
“Our initial assessment
is they probably moved them in a last moment to avoid detection,” said the
officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing
inquiry.
Officials have also
identified a possible intelligence gap. Ethnic infighting at the top of
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, may
have resulted in key people failing to pass on information that could have
helped derail the attacks.
At this week’s meetings
in Islamabad, new ideas were gently sounded out.
A senior Pakistani
official said his country was offering a “wide menu of counterterrorism
options” in a bid to at least slow down the rate of drone strikes. Pakistan has
also offered to send F-16 fighter jets to strike Taliban and Qaeda targets in
the tribal belt.
United States officials
have said that if Pakistan would not or could not strike insurgents in places
like Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, then the drone attacks would
have to continue. With Pakistan refusing at least publicly to condone the
strikes, the two sides seem at an impasse.
“The policy of the
government is very, very clear,” Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Jalil Abbas
Jilani, said Thursday. “We consider drones as illegal, counterproductive and,
accordingly, unacceptable.”
Another Pakistani
official, however, conceded, “Privately, we know they are unlikely to stop.”
The reopening of NATO
supply lines is important for the United States military to support troops
currently in Afghanistan, but also to help withdraw tons of weapons and
matériel out as a major drawdown approaches in 2014. But, the senior Obama
administration official added, Pakistan’s support for the NATO lines was about
politics as much as logistics. “Our NATO partners see them as increasingly
problematic, not as a partner,” he said. “If they don’t restore this, those
feelings will become intensified over time.”
Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Eric
Schmitt and Steven Lee Myers from Washington. Alissa J. Rubin contributed
reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
