WASHINGTON, July 12: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s talks in Washington are expected to bring some US assistance to help Pakistan deal with the current food crisis but will not ease increasing US pressure on Islamabad to do more in the war against terrorism.

Both Mr Qureshi and the US State Department acknowledged the two points in their separate statements on the talks.

“She did intend to talk about issues related to fighting terrorism, whether that was in the Fata or cross-border infiltration both ways,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack when asked to give a reading on the meeting between Mr Qureshi and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “She also intended to talk about issues related to the precipitous rise in food and energy costs in Pakistan.”

Mr Qureshi also emphasised the two points while talking about his talks with Ms Rice.

Later, an official Pakistani press release on his meeting with US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley quoted him as assuring the US official that “the Pakistani government will not negotiate with the terrorists, but will work with our people to limit the influence of extremists in the society.”

At a lecture at the Saban Centre for the Middle East Policy, where former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto made her last public appearance in Washington, Mr Qureshi further elaborated this point. “Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used against another country that shows in operations in the Khyber Agency,” he said. “We do not negotiate with terrorists and will not capitulate to threats. We will take action as required.”

During the Q & A session, when a CNN correspondent reminded him that Pakistan had failed to stop cross-border infiltrations into Afghanistan, Mr Qureshi got a little piqued. “Pakistan has done whatever possible,” he said. “We have 100,000 troops on the border, have erected 1,200 posts and have urged Afghanistan to introduce biometric ID cards.”

The foreign minister, however, pointed out that 45,000 people and over 20,000 vehicles cross the Afghan border every day and over two million refugees still living in Pakistan. “We have made water-tight arrangements but no arrangement is fool-proof.”

Mr Qureshi told the audience that troubles in Afghanistan were not of Pakistan’s creation and lot of these problems were internal in nature, “miss-governance, drug trade, warring factions and corruption are contributing to Afghanistan’s instability. It is easy to pass the buck, but we have to fight together against this common enemy.”

Another member of the audience, an Afghan scholar, reminded Mr Qureshi that the Afghans do not trust Pakistan. “We are doing everything we can. Please tell us what more we can do to rebuild this trust?” he asked.

Mr Qureshi said that Pakistan has paid a heavy price for its involvement in Afghanistan, both during the Afghan war and after. “More than 1,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in Fata. A lot of the ills that we are now struggling with go back to the days of the Afghan war.”

Later, diplomatic sources told Dawn that similar doubts were also expressed in his meetings with US officials on Pakistan’s inability to stop cross-border infiltration of Taliban insurgents into Afghanistan and on its decision to hold talks with the militants.

Sources say that like the Afghans, the Americans are not willing to trust Pakistan either and they now endorse the Afghan claim that people within the Pakistani establishment are supporting the insurgents, a claim Pakistan denies.

As the State Department indicated in its statement, the United States still wants to help Pakistan overcome its economic, political and social problems but is not satisfied with its conduct in the war against terror.

Apparently, the Americans are willing to assure the new government in Islamabad that they not only want to provide additional economic support but are also committed to a long-term relationship, as Mr Qureshi desired. But to earn this, Pakistan will have to do more in the war against terror.