US, Pak negotiate CIA, special forces

US, Pak negotiate CIA, special forces

South Asian News Agency (SANA) ⋅ April 14, 2011 ⋅

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration says it is negotiating a possible reduction in American intelligence operatives and special operations officers in Pakistan.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner says the 300-strong contingent is helping train the Pakistani military. He says the US wants to maintain the programme and is talking with Pakistani authorities about requirements and force levels. Toner says the two countries are discussing the type of programmes and troop levels that are acceptable for the Pakistani government.

The two countries are trying to mend relations badly strained by the arrest and detention of a CIA security contractor after he killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him.

Toner acknowledged Tuesday that the 47-day detention of CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis has made relations more difficult.

“Certainly, the US and Pakistan remain strategic partners. We’ve got a shared commitment to strengthening our bilateral relationship. And we have been through a difficult period. I think, other people, individuals and US officials have acknowledged that including ambassador Cameron Munter,” Toner said at the daily briefing.

“And we are working to get relationship back on track. We are looking to

renew the relationship in a way and getting past difficulty that Raymond Davis case caused,” he added in response to a question about the current state of relations between the two countries.

Toner remarked it is important to recognise that US-Pakistan relationship is not confined to counter-terrorism cooperation but also includes economic cooperation in wide-ranging areas.

“It is not a one dimensional relationship. We have got assistance (through) Kerry-Lugar Berman Act of providing $1.5 billion (annually) and focus on infrastructure building, institution building, the kinds of long-term actions that are going to help build Pakistan a stronger democracy so that it is more resistent to these internal threats.”

According to The Washington Post, the CIA has agreed to reveal more about its operatives and their activities in Pakistan, and pledged expanded cooperation on drone strikes, in an effort to repair a widening rift between two counter-terrorism allies, US and Pakistani officials said.

But US officials insisted that there was no plan to suspend or restrict the CIA’s drone campaign, and that the agency has not been asked to pull any of its employees out of Pakistan.

The modest CIA concessions come at a time when the agency and its Pakistani counterpart seem increasingly at odds over the scale and direction of the covert war against al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

The frayed relationship was the focus of a nearly four-hour meeting Monday at CIA headquarters between agency director Leon E Panetta and Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.

Although both sides cited progress, there were also indications that major points of disagreement remain unresolved. In particular, officials provided conflicting accounts of whether the CIA’s Predator programme would face new constraints.

A Pakistani official said drone campaign “is frozen for the moment” until the two sides agree on new rules that would reduce the number of CIA missile strikes.

Most of those killed over the past year have been “just foot soldiers,” he said.

He also accused the CIA of inflating the importance of targets to justify the strikes – of saying, for example, “he was an expert on bomb-making, he was the IT brain.” But asked whether Pasha had formally requested a halt, the official said, “not in those words.” US officials said that aside from pledging to give Pakistan greater visibility into the decisions behind drone strikes, there are no new restrictions on the CIA’s ability to fire.