Clinton to visit Pakistan amid increasing tensions

Oct 20, 2011, 7:02 GMT

Islamabad - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to arrive in Pakistan Thursday on a two-day visit to ease increasing tensions between the two countries over the fight against militants, a Pakistani official said.

'She is expected to arrive in Pakistan in the afternoon,' said an official from Pakistan's Foreign Ministry who spoke on the condition of anonymity. For security reasons, the official refused to give the exact time for the arrival of Clinton, who would be travelling from Afghanistan.

Clinton's visit, her second this year, would come at a time when Pakistan-US relations are strained with increasing pressure from Washington on Islamabad to act against the Haqqani militant network, an Afghanistan-based Taliban group that has carried out lethal attacks inside Kabul recently.

US officials have directly pointed a finger at Pakistani intelligence agencies, accusing them of supporting the Haqqani network. Pakistan said it's been unable to take on the militants because its forces are overstretched due to operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda elsewhere in north-west Pakistan.

Amid the tensions, US and Afghan forces have launched an operation in the Afghan province of Khost along the border with North Waziristan, one of the seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region. it is where the Haqqani network has bases.

'We think that Clinton's visit is very crucial in the current situation,' the Pakistani official said Thursday. 'Both sides will listen to each other with sympathy, and we are hopeful that things will improve.'

He added that CIA chief David Patraeus and the chairman of the US Joints Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, would join Clinton in her talks in Islamabad.

During her visit, Clinton was scheduled to have meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, military chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

She would arrive after landing Wednesday in Afghanistan and meeting its president, Hamid Karzai, Thursday.

A US embassy official in Kabul said Clinton would push for a political resolution to the decade-old insurgency in Afghanistan.

Analysts said Pakistan is concerned because the United States has not taken the country on board in its efforts for reconciliation with Taliban as it plans a withdrawal from Afghanistan.