WASHINGTON, Feb 18: The United States said on Wednesday it would wait for the results before offering any comments on a peace deal between the Swat militants and Pakistani authorities.

The cautious US reaction – given at a regular briefing at the State Department – contrasts sharply with that of America’s Nato allies described the truce as “certainly a reason for concern”.

“We’re in discussions or we’re in contact with the government of Pakistan, and we’ll see what the results of their policy will be,” said US State Department’s deputy spokesman Gordon Duguid, when asked for comments.

On Tuesday, Mr Duguid told a similar briefing that the introduction of Islamic law was “within the constitutional framework of Pakistan” and that it was not “an issue for anyone outside of Pakistan to discuss”.

Asked for further update on the agreement between the militants and Pakistani authorities that may lead to the introduction of religious laws in the Swat valley, Mr Duguid said: “We leave it where we had it yesterday. We’re watching the situation.”After the State Department’s initial reaction, a Nato spokesman, James Appathurai, told reporters in Brussels that “we should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven”.

He said he did not want to “doubt the good faith of the Pakistani government,” but it’s clear that the region was “suffering very badly from extremists and we would not want it to get worse”.

Diplomatic observers in Washington say that the cautious US reaction indicates that Pakistan had kept the Americans in the loop and for them the deal was not unexpected.

They point out that the special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was in Islamabad days before the Swat deal was announced and it’s highly impro-bable that Islamabad would not have consulted him before announcing the accord.

The observers, however, noted that the US reaction was not much different from its response to a similar deal with the militants in North Waziristan in September 2006.

Instead of rejecting the deal outrightly, the Bush administration had said that it would wait to see if it actually led to peace in the region.

Later, the Americans rejected the deal saying that it allowed the militants to regroup and rearm and launch fresh attacks into Afghanistan.

American observers are expressing similar doubts about the Swat deal. “I would have thought that the example of previous agreements in North and South Waziristan would have led Islamabad to doubt the utility of such deals,” said Robert M. Hathaway, director, Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington.

“It would seem to indicate that in Pakistan, as elsewhere, power does indeed grow out of the barrel of a gun, rather than through the ballot box.”

Kasab’s extradition

At the State Department, spokesman Gordon was also asked if the US supported Islamabad’s demand for handing over Ajmal Kasab, the chief suspect in the Mumbai terror attacks, to Pakistan.

“I think that he should be put through a judicial process and that that judicial process should be fair and transparent,” said Mr Duguid. “But I don’t have an opinion on whether he should be extradited or not. That would be between India and Pakistan.”

The spokesman said the US was working with both sides in order to help bring all of the attackers in Mumbai to justice and noted that the Pakistanis had taken some steps to help the Indians in their investigations.

Responding to a question about John Solecki, a UN official of American origin who was kidnapped earlier this month in Quetta, Mr Duguid said he should be released immediately and without condition.

He said while the US was very concerned about Mr Solecki’s safety, he was a UN employee and the United Nations was the lead agency in this matter.