Pakistan has pledged to grant more than three dozen visas to CIA officers as part of confidence-building measures following the US raid that killed al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and humiliated Pakistan, officials from both countries said Wednesday, but the visas have not yet been issued.
The visas are part of an agreement to rebuild counterterrorism efforts by forming what Pakistani officials call a joint intelligence team, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. The agreement was reached after talks in Islamabad between Pakistani intelligence chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha and top CIA officials, including CIA director Leon Panetta, the officials said.
The visas will help replenish CIA staff on the ground, as some staffers were forced to leave when their visas were not renewed in the aftermath of the controversy over CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who shot two Pakistanis to death in the city of Lahore, the US official said. He was released after it was arranged that the families of the dead men would receive compensation.
There will also be some additional officers allowed in to join the enhanced joint intelligence effort to hunt high value al Qaida targets, the official added. Despite repeated promises and assurances from Pakistani officials, the visas have yet to be issued, officials from both sides said.
The Pakistanis say it's simply a matter of time but would not say when they would be given. The covert US Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden last month in Abbottabad, an army town not far outside Islamabad, severely strained relations between the US and Pakistan. Pakistan was outraged that the US carried out the raid without telling it first. US officials said they kept the raid secret because they were worried bin Laden would be tipped off.
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