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.

Pressure Kills Another Pakistani Victim Of US Agent Raymond Davis

Pressure Kills Another Pakistani Victim Of US Agent Raymond Davis

· Shumaila Kanwal was under pressure from Interior Ministry to forgive the American killer

· US diplomats and a pro-US government take the life of a young couple

· Her last words, ‘I don’t expect justice from this government’



Four Pakistani citizens are now dead because of an American killer who is being shielded by the US government.




SPECIAL REPORT | Monday | 7 February 2011
WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pressure from the federal government and especially from the Interior Ministry on the families of the victims of an American spy illegally operating in Pakistan has claimed the life of a young wife, taking the number of those killed by the actions of Raymond Davis to four Pakistani citizens.

The families of the three Pakistanis killed by covert American agents faced tremendous pressure last week from the pro-US government to forgive the killers.

Far from protecting the rights of its own citizens, the Pakistani government has been scrambling to find ways to release four Americans wanted in the murder of three Pakistanis falsely accused by the US Embassy of being robbers. Unknown Pakistani officials have offered US Green Card and blood money which have been roundly rejected by the families.

But apparently Shumaila Kanwal could not take the pressure. Her husband Muhammad Faheem was not only shot in the back by suspected CIA operative Raymond Davis, which defies any possibility of attempted robbery or attack, but the US Embassy brazenly came out to dub Faheem as a robber, without any evidence. Talks are underway between lawyers and the families of Faheem and another victim to sue the US Embassy for defamation, in addition to obstruction of justice and misleading a criminal investigation.

Shumail, 25, was married six months ago.

Lamenting a Pakistani state run by rulers who can no longer protect their own citizens, Shumaila committed suicide by swallowing rat poison on Saturday. She was rushed to a hospital in Faisalabad in critical condition where she died a few hours later.

"I do not expect any justice from this government," said Kanwal in a statement recorded by the doctor before she died, according to a report. "That is why I want to kill myself."

Kanwal also spoke to reporters after arriving at the hospital, saying: "I want blood for blood."

"The way my husband was shot, his killer should be shot in the same fashion," she said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani are scrambling to get the American killer released. Together with the US government they are badgering the Pakistani Foreign Office to change its position and certify that the accused Americans, apparently working for either CIA or US military without permission from Pakistani government, be declared as diplomats and granted immunity from prosecution.



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