Pak to hold tripartite talks to repair ties: Khar

WASHINGTON: Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar Thursday revealed that her country would soon hold confidential talks with the United States and Afghanistan to improve a three-way counterterrorism relationship beset by misunderstandings, including one over the Pakistan-based Haqqani network that Washington considers the greatest threat to Afghan stability.

Hina Rabbani Khar said senior officials from the three countries have been instructed to come up with a strategy for repairing cooperation that has suffered since US-Pakistani relations collapsed a year and half ago.

That chill in relations was brought on by a CIA contractor’s killing of two Pakistanis, the unilateral US raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound inside Pakistan and the accidental killing of 24 Pakistani troops in November by Nato forces.

A key element of the talks will be to determine which militant groups can be persuaded to lay down their arms as part of an Afghan peace treaty, a key if so far lagging part of the US strategy to stabilize the country as it withdraws forces over the next two years.

“This has to be a joint effort to determine who is a threat … to determine how we deal with those who are a threat, and how do we bring in those which are not,” said Khar.

“We are willing to work with anyone against any forces which are a threat to peace and stability.”

Khar also addressed other contentious points in the US-Pakistani relationship, heaping scorn on the doctor who allegedly helped the US track down bin Laden in Pakistan last year and defending her government’s decision to declare a national holiday on Friday so people can demonstrate against an American-made Internet video that ridicules Islam.

Lawmakers have been demanding tough Pakistani action on the Haqqani network, which the Obama administration formally designated as a terrorist body on Wednesday.

Khar dismissed the notion that Pakistan had any special responsibility to deal with the Haqqanis, lumping them in with the 5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

“We would be happy to send each one of them back and live in peace in Pakistan,” she said.

The White House declined to comment on the counterterrorism talks, but US officials familiar with the developments saw cause for optimism in the upcoming negotiations, which were worked out by President Barack Obama’s chief Afghanistan and Pakistan advisers, Marc Grossman and Doug Lute, in a meeting last week with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

A “working group” will include top US officials from the White House, State Department and Pentagon along with their Pakistani and Afghan counterparts, one current and one former US official said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly.

The US and Pakistan are also holding talks on other counterterrorism issues, including CIA drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, but the talks so far have produced no breakthroughs, US and Pakistani officials say.

Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped, or it wants to control the drones directly _ something the US refuses.

Khar called the working group a “turning point.”

But she made it clear that Islamabad was not simply going to do Washington’s bidding, sharply criticizing Panetta for his comments about supposed Pakistani military operations.

Khar said Panetta was speaking “beyond his scope.”

“He is obviously welcome to talk about what military action will take place by American troops,” Khar said, but not Pakistan’s.

And she pointed a finger back at the United States for the “hundreds” of militants crossing the border from Afghanistan and “slaughtering our soldiers,” including 17 troops who were beheaded recently.

Khar also sought to explain the Pakistani decision to declare Friday a national holiday, saying the “day of loving the Prophet” would motivate the peaceful majority to demonstrate their love for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and not allow extremists to turn it into a show of anger.