Marc Grossman talks to the media in New Delhi.—AP

WASHINGTON: US special envoy Marc Grossman will go to Pakistan when the Pakistanis are ready for talks with the United States on a multi-faceted bilateral relationship, says the State Department.

Mr Grossman, who is now in the region, wanted to visit Pakistan for consultations on exploratory talks with the Taliban but Islamabad asked him to postpone the visit.

At a news briefing, the department’s spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, explained that Pakistan was still reviewing its relationship with the US.

“Right now they are still going through their internal review about where they want to go in our bilateral relationship, so the visit is premature.

“So it was on that basis that he decided not to go. We never got to the stage of submitting visas or any of that.”

“Is it your understanding that they’re debating whether to have a relationship with you at all?” asked a journalist.

“They did not judge that it was timely to have these conversations, but they did make clear that they want to do it at a future date, and frankly, we need to give them the space that they need to work on their issues so that we can have a good set of meetings when they are ready,” said Ms Nuland.

“And Ambassador Grossman has made it clear, the Secretary (Hillary Clinton) has made it clear that when they’re ready, he will go back.”

Ms Nuland noted that the Pakistan Foreign Office also had expressed the desire to rebuild a multi-faceted relationship with the US. She also pointed out that the relationship with Pakistan had continued despite the problems the two countries had faced after the Nov 26 Nato raid on Pakistani border posts.

“Our ambassador and our Embassy are in contact with the Pakistanis on a daily basis. Our civilian assistance is continuing to flow. Our full range of programmes that we do on economic support, infrastructure, all of these, educational things are going forward,” she said.

Asked to comment on Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar’s statement that the US must stop drone attacks, Ms Nuland said she would not like to discuss individual issues before Pakistanis completed their parliamentary review.

“They’re going to review it inter-agency. Then they will brief us on the entirety of their thinking, and we’ll have a consultation on it. I’m not going to prejudge pieces of that when they’re in the middle of their own process,” she said.

The US official disagreed with an Indian journalist who suggested that during his visit to New Delhi on Friday Ambassador Grossman had asked India to do more in Afghanistan.

“No. I think our view is that India has been a strong supporter of a regional strategy, is playing a key role in supporting Afghanistan, and (he visited New Delhi) just to compare notes on those issues,” she said.