Afghans Call For More Pressure on Pakistan After US Talks Falter

ToloNews

Afghan political analysts reacted to the failure of Pakistan and the US to end the diplomatic deadlock between them after meetings in Islamabad last week, saying that the US needed to put more pressure on Pakistan. The New York Times reported Friday the talks failed as Pakistani officials asked for an unconditional US apology over the Nato airstrike in Pakistan which killed at least 24 soldiers on November 26 last year. It said that the US had been considering making an apology until the Taliban's coordinated attacks on Kabul and three eastern provinces of Afghanistan on April 15 which were found to be planned and mounted by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network. An Afghan military analyst responded to the failure of the talks, saying that the US should use any kind of pressure on Pakistan to make it stop supporting insurgent groups. "The US should put Pakistan under all kind of possible pressure, whether it's economical, political or even military, to make them stop the insurgency affecting other regional countries," military analyst Noorul Haq Oluomi said. Another commentator believed that the main problem between the two nations is over Pakistan encouraging pro-Pakistan figures in Afghanistan politics after 2014. "The main point of contention between US and Pakistan is not that [the apology], the main point is who will lead Afghanistan after 2014," Faizullah Jalal, Kabul University professor told TOLOnews. "Pakistan wants the Taliban to have an important role in the leadership of Afghanistan, which is very difficult for the US to accept." Pakistan has yet to announce whether it will participate at the Nato summit in Chicago which is going to be held in May this year. The US has said it would be embarrassing if it doesn't participate. A US government official told the NYT that the failure for the pair to reach an agreement in Islamabad would not be resolved quickly. "This is the beginning of the re-engagement conversation," Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said in Washington Friday. "We're going to have to work through these issues, and it's going to take some time." The Nato airstrike last year led to Pakistan blocking Nato's supply route to Afghanistan and boycotting the Germany-based Bonn international conference on Afghanistan, to which the US responded by suspending military aid to Pakistan, estimated to be between $1.18 billion to $3 billion. The US-Pakistan dialogue was revived after US President Barak Obama and Pakistani president Yousaf Raza Gilani met on the sidelines of the nuclear summit meeting in Seoul last month. Since then, Pakistan's Parliament has reviewed its relations with the US and called for an end to the US drone strikes which the US considers the most effective weapon against insurgents' hideouts in border regions of the Pakistan-Afghanistan borders.