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NEW YORK: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has rejected an impression that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an ultimatum to Islamabad to attack Haqqani group militants.
“There are some misperceptions about the meeting I had with Secretary Clinton... There were no ultimatums from either side,” she told reporters on Monday.
The relationship between the United States and Pakistan was an important one and no one is a hostage in it, said Khar, who is leading Pakistan’s delegation to the 66th session of the UN General Assembly. “Pakistan is in it by choice,” she added.
US officials said after Sunday’s talks that the issues of counterterrorism in general and the Haqqani network in particular were the first and last topics discussed by Clinton and the Pakistani foreign minister.
But Khar said the meeting was not unidimensional, it covered all the issues of interest to Pakistan and the United States.
Both the US and Pakistan, Khar said, understand the need to cooperate and build a partnership.
Pakistan had made “big” sacrifices in combating terrorism and lost some 30,000 citizens, and 5,000 security officials, the foreign minister said.
“We need to be assisted, not recriminated,” she said. “There should be no public recrimination. This must stop.”
She pointed out that Pakistan even paid a heavy price for arresting a militant in Quetta recently—al Qaeda leader Younis al-Mauritania—when 30 people lost their lives in a revenge attack.
Pakistan was committed to rooting out terrorism and was fulfilling its obligations in this regard, Khar said.
Pakistan acted in its own national interest, not at the behest of some one, she added.
