US dismisses remarks attributed to Richard Holbrooke by Pak daily

The US today dismissed remarks attributed to its Special Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy Richard Holbrooke that the Obama administration would not accept any slackness by the Pakistan Army in the fight against Taliban due to the military's engagement in flood relief efforts.

A statement issued by the US embassy said Holbrooke had been misquoted by a Pakistani daily as saying during an interaction with the media yesterday that America would not accept slackness by the Pakistan army in the war on terror.

"At no time did ambassador Holbrooke make such a statement. Both the headline of the article and the quote in the article were fabricated," the statement said.

Asked by a reporter to comment on the security situation after the floods in Pakistan, Holbrooke's said: "The security situation has not fundamentally changed in the last month. I read in the newspapers that the Taliban have taken advantage of it and so on, but there's no evidence for that one way or another.

"Right now there's a much bigger problem, of course the Taliban remain and it's an enormous concern to us because we're in a very difficult situation in Afghanistan. But I haven't seen anything yet that tells me the floods have affected that situation."

Holbrooke further said that his "instinct in the long run" was that the Pakistan Army's involvement in flood relief efforts would not be a "decisive issue".

He added, "But I might be wrong, I might be wrong, it depends on what the government's policies are."