WASHINGTON: The United States continues to work with Islamabad towards restoration of Pakistani routes for Nato supplies into Afghanistan and hopes to resolve the issue soon, a State Department spokesman said.
“We do remain engaged with Pakistan on reopening these ground lines of communication. We want to and think that opening them would obviously be an important demonstration of Pakistan's commitment to the international effort to ensure a prosperous, peaceful Afghanistan. So we are working diligently trying to make progress,” Deputy Spokesman at the State Department Mark Toner said.
He spoke amid media reports that a senior US official may next week join the American team in Islamabad that is negotiating a resolution to the six-month old issue with their Pakistani counterparts.
Pakistan shut down the key supply routes in November 2011, after 24 of its soldiers deployed on two posts along the Afghan border, were killed in Nato cross-border warplane strikes.
Questioned if there is a timeline on these negotiations for reopening the overland routes into landlocked Afghanistan, or the talks can go on indefinitely, the spokesman responded: “I mean, we certainly hope to reach a resolution very soon.”
Toner said that Washington is discussing a broad range of issues with Islamabad.
“We are continuing to meet in Islamabad to talk over these issues as we are discussing a broad range of issues with Pakistan. But you are right. It's slow going, but we are making progress,” he remarked.
He said that the United States wants Pakistan to be a stable, prosperous democracy that's helping its neighbors also become stable democracies.
Regarding sentencing of Shakil Afridi, aPakistani who worked for CIA but has been imprisoned for 33 years on charges of aiding a militant organisation, the spokesman said the United States is seeking clarity on the basis of his conviction.
The spokesman said the United States is in touch with Pakistani officials both in Washington and Islamabad to clarify the issue.
Toner spoke after reports, citing a tribal court judgment document, said the doctor was jailed not on account of his work for CIA against al Qaeda but for his links with a banned militant organization, Lashkar-i-Islam.
'No, we are actually seeking clarity on those latest reports.
“I am aware of what you are talking about, so we have raised those with the Government of Pakistan. It seems to us to contrast previous reports about his conviction and the basis of it, so we are trying to get clarity,” Toner replied, when asked if Washington was clear about the charges, which became basis for Afridi's sentencing by a Pakistani tribal court.
The spokesman said he was unsure whether family of Dr Afridi, who worked for CIA in running a sham vaccination campaign to get DNA samples of al Qaeda chief, has asked for US assistance.
“I am actually not sure that they have actually approached us requesting assistance. I mean, other than raising it very publicly, as we have done via Secretary Clinton, and raising it consistently in our meetings with Pakistani Government officials, it's unclear to me what else we could do for his case,” Toner said in answer to a question about a reported statement by Afridi's brother that the doctor was not being helped.
“But we certainly take it very seriously. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was very clear in her remarks, saying that there is not any basis for holding Dr Afrid,” he added.
