Divisions between Pakistan and the US can be narrowed but not eliminated, a senior army spokesman in Islamabad told Emerging Markets on the eve of finance minister Hafeez Shaikh’s visit to Washington.
Pakistan’s relations with the US have been embittered since the row in February over the arrest of Raymond Davis, a US intelligence agent who shot dead two men in Lahore, and the raid in May on Osama bin Laden’s Abbotabad complex.
In recent weeks links have been further strained after an attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and the assassination of a key Afghan leader involved in peace talks with the Taliban, attacks in which US sources suspect some kind of Pakistani involvement.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday that the US would “take whatever steps are necessary to protect our forces”, raising the possibility of unilateral action if Pakistan fails to take act.
General Athar Abbas, the official Pakistan Army spokesman, said in an interview with Emerging Markets: “We feel it’s important for our partners and allies to realize that we are fighting on our own soil, against our own people. As such there will be a gap between our interests in this war and those of America, which is fighting far away from its shores.
“This gap between our interests and theirs can be narrowed, but it can never be eliminated.”
The message of dwindling American patience has been repeatedly delivered to Pakistan over the past week in meetings between military and diplomatic officials.
The military chiefs of both countries met in Seville, Spain last week, and Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton held a three-hour meeting with Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Khar in New York on Sunday, just prior to the UN General Assembly session.
Khar told Emerging Markets afterwards that the talks had been “constructive”, and that counterterrorism had not been the only issue discussed.
The next day, in remarks before the UN Secretary General’s Symposium on counter-terrorism, she rejected what she called a “fixation on narrow approaches to fight terrorism, either through operational measures alone,” or through “strictly legal mechanisms”.
However, a US State Department spokes-man said that “the issue of counter-terrorism was both the first issue and the last issue on their agenda.”
An atmosphere dominated by talk of counter-terrorism will undoubtedly make finance minister Shaikh’s engagement with the IMF after the Standby Programme tricky.
Hafeez Pasha, who served a brief stint as finance minister in the days when Pakistan was under sanctions for carrying out nuclear tests, said the soured relationship with the US could impact on ties with the IMF.
“Things will become much more difficult”, he told Emerging Markets. “We could be subject to more detailed audits for instance, and a letter of comfort that is required from the IMF will be difficult to obtain. But we are nowhere near where we were in 1998, following the imposition of sanctions.”
Pakistan has been receiving enhanced American aid for two years now, but officials have complained that little of this money is routed through the budget, which means it is of little help to the government.