US ‘ready to mend Pakistan ties’

WASHINGTON, Feb 25: The United States has revived high-level diplomatic and military contacts with Pakistan, indicating a desire to put behind the bitterness created by the arrest of a CIA contractor in Lahore, diplomatic sources told.

On Wednesday, when the US and Pakistani military chiefs had a day-long meeting in Oman, Pakistan`s Ambassador Husain Haqqani was invited to the State Department for a formal meeting with Marc Grossman, the new US Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

During the meeting, the State Department informed the ambassador that Mr Grossman planned to visit Islamabad early next month for exploratory talks with Pakistani leaders.

Although Mr Grossman served in Islamabad from 1976 to 1983, this would be his first visit to the country since his appointment earlier this month as US special representative for the region, replacing the late Richard Holbrooke.

“There`s no severance of relations,” said a diplomatic source while describing the impact of Raymond Davis`s arrest on US-Pakistan ties. “The Americans were still talking to the Pakistanis but almost always focused on the Davis affair.”

In Wednesday`s meeting, the source said, the Americans did not raise this issue. “Instead, they expressed the desire to move ahead with the efforts to build a strategic relationship with Pakistan.”

The source said that while the trilateral — Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US — talks scheduled in Washington this week had been postponed, the strategic dialogue would go ahead as planned.

The US-Pakistan strategic talks were scheduled next month and may still be delayed but would be held “more or less as planned”, the source said. The source confirmed a news report that the Davis dispute had strained relations between the CIA and the ISI but both sides had agreed to mend those ties as well.

“Misunderstandings and suspicions,” said the source while explaining what caused the tensions between the two spy agencies.

“The Pakistanis complained that the Americans were working behind their back, against the spirit of the partnership,” the source added, while “the Americans felt that the ISI was protecting some insurgents”.

In November, WikiLeaks confirmed that large numbers of US special operations forces had been operating inside Pakistan with or without Islamabad`s consent.

The source also confirmed that the Pakistan Embassy had issued thousands of visas to Americans, more than 400 on a single day. “But all those visas were issued with Islamabad`s consent,” said the source.