NEW YORK, May 4: Senator Barack Obama said on Sunday that the United States should initiate a new relationship with the new government in Pakistan and help its people prosper economically.

“We have an opportunity to initiate a new relationship. We’ve got to send a signal to them that we are interested in national security, but we also recognize they’re interested in figuring out how do they feed their people and how do they prosper economically,” Mr Obama said in an interview on NBC News programme meet the press on Sunday.

Responding to a question about growing threat of Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama stressed “we’re also going to have to address the situation in Pakistan, where we now have, in the federated areas, Al Qaeda and the Taliban setting up bases there”.

He said: “Instead of just focusing on our issues, we’ve got to focus on some of theirs, so that we can get better cooperation to hunt down Al Qaeda and make sure that does not become a safe haven for them.”

He said: “I think we need more troops there, I think we need to do a better job of reconstruction there. I think we have to be focused on Afghanistan.”

He pointed out that “It is one of the reasons that I was opposed to the war in Iraq in the first place. We now know that Al Qaeda is stronger than any time since 2001”.