BY IANS,
Washington : Saying it wanted to move beyond a transactional relationship, the US says it wants to ramp up military ties with Pakistan to help combat militancy.
“We need to substantially increase our military assistance and broaden the form,” US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Mich�le Flournoy said at a seminar here.
The US wanted to move beyond a transactional relationship that only involved equipping, supporting and reimbursing to a strategic relationship also involving training, advising and working together on the ground, Dawn Wednesday quoted Flournoy as saying.
Such a relationship “would be much more effective and get a lot farther down the road of achieving our common objectives”, she maintained.
According to Flournoy, the US wants to share with the Pakistani Army the counter-insurgency tactics developed in Iraq and Afghanistan and support ongoing operations with intelligence and other assistance.
Speaking about US President Barack Obama’s newly-unveiled Af-Pak policy, Flournoy said it aimed to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies and to ensure that they cannot return to Afghanistan or continue to stay in Pakistan as safe havens where they can train and stage terrorist attacks”.
This could only work if there was a “fundamental shift” in the US-Pakistan relationship.