US can’t live with or without Pakistan: Yousuf Raza Gilani

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has reiterated that the United States can’t effectively fight the ongoing war against terror in Afghanistan without his country’s assistance.

“They can’t live with us. They can’t live without us,” the Dawn quoted Gilani, as saying. 

“So, I would say to them that if they can’t live without us, they should increase contacts with us to remove misunderstandings,” he added.

He further emphasized that the US should avoid issuing statements unacceptable to the Pakistani public.

“No compromise would be acceptable on Pakistan’s sovereignty,” the prime minister said, adding that a stable Afghanistan was in the interests of Pakistan.

Gilani was responding to Senate testimony by US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen about Pakistan on Thursday.

Mullen had accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of supporting the Haqqani network in planning and executing the assault on the US Embassy in Afghanistan last week and a truck bomb that wounded 77 American soldiers days earlier.

He had also said that the US had credible information that Haqqani extremists, with help from the ISI, were responsible for the June 28 attack on the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and other small, but effective assaults.