Pakistan warned the United States it risks losing an ally if it continued to accuse Islamabad of playing a double game in the war against militancy, escalating the crisis in relations between the two countries. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was responding to comments by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who said ISI was closely tied to the Haqqani network, the most violent and effective faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
It is the most serious allegation levelled by the United States against Pakistan since they began an alliance in the "war on terror" a decade ago. "You will lose an ally," Khar told TV channel in New York in remarks broadcast on Friday. "You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, you cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people. If you are choosing to do so and if they are choosing to do so it will be at their (the United States') own cost." The tensions could have repercussions across Asia, from India to China, which has edged closer to Pakistan in recent years.
HUMILIATION "Anything which is said about an ally, about a partner, publicly to recriminate it, to humiliate it, is not acceptable," said Khar.
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