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ShareNew York: US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will visit Islamabad in a few days for talks focusing on the American aid issue and the Pakistani government's new military drive against extremists in the Afghan border region, officials said on Monday.
Clinton's visit comes amid a controversy in Pakistan over a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian assistance package approved by Congress last month. Pakistan wanted the money with no strings attached, but hasn't been able to get its way. The issue flared again after the US Senate passed a defence spending bill last Friday that includes military aid to Pakistan, with restrictions that upset Pakistani officials. The bill imposes limits on how Pakistan gets reimbursed with one provision stating that aid to Pakistan must not "affect the balance of power in the region" -- meaning Pakistan should not use US funding to build up defenses against India.
"You know that US-Pakistan relations are in bad shape when what is perceived as a generous gift in one country is widely received as an insult in the other," said Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Stimson Centre in Washington, and the author of Better Safe than Sorry -- The Ironies of Living with the Bomb. "Although Pakistanis may find this hard to believe, the conditionalities attached to the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation were exceptionally lax by Capitol Hill standards."
As one White House adviser put it, "Clinton will now have her work cut out in trying to address Pakistan's concerns over the provisions in the new American aid package."
US officials are providing no details of the Clinton itinerary because of security considerations.
But The New York Times said that she would arrive in Pakistan this week, to find a country "consumed by doubts" about the value of the alliance with the US and "resentful of ever-rising American demands" to do more. The threatened Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been unleashing deadly bomb attacks on Pakistani targets in a bid to upstage the military campaign in South Waziristan.
Despite the heavy civilian toll and simmering tensions, Clinton will keep the US pressure on Pakistan to fight the al Qaeda and the Taliban.
