US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Pakistan needs to increase efforts to rid the country of terror organizations.
By REUTERSclinton 311(photo credit: REUTERS)
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a news conference in Islamabad Friday where she asked for greater cooperation between Pakistan and the US to drive out terrorists from the region."In response to the legitimate concerns that we have heard from our Pakistani partners, we are trying to squeeze and prevent terrorists on the Afghan side of the border from attacking Pakistan. Now similarly, we need greater cooperation on the Pakistani side of the border. In effect, we want to squeeze these terrorists so that they cannot attack and kill any Pakistani, any Afghan, any American, or anyone," Clinton said.The Pakistani Foreign Minister agreed with Clinton but made clear the task is not theirs alone.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said, "...let me also be clear that we are keen to cooperate with you and other countries more closely to be able to evolve a common strategy to be able to fight against terrorism, we are keen to be able to share, to be able to increase the cooperation in the intelligence field and other fields. Let all that be clear."Friday's joint news conference comes a day after what had been described as "extremely frank" discussions between Clinton and Pakistani counterparts."So we had a very in depth conversation with specifics. And we are looking forward to taking that conversation and operationalising it over the next days and weeks, not months and years, but days and weeks, because we have a lot of work to do to realize our shared goals," Clinton said.US pressure on Pakistan has been mounting since American special forces found and killed Osama bin Laden in May in a Pakistani town, where he had apparently been living for years.
