The top US military chief warned Monday that US-Pakistan military-to-military ties were at a "very difficult" crossroads, allowing that a path to progress on that front was not yet clear. President Barack Obama's administration recently suspended about a third of its $2.7 billion annual defence aid to Pakistan in the wake of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden near the country's main military academy.
But it assured Islamabad it is committed to a $7.5 billion civilian assistance package approved in 2009. "We are in a very difficult time right now in our military-to-military relations," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told a press briefing billed as his last before retirement. Despite the strain, Mullen said "I don't think that we are close to severing" those ties. And the retiring admiral said he hoped the two nations would soon find a way to "recalibrate" those ties. Still, Mullen acknowledged: "we need to work through the details of how this (recalibration) is going to happen."
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