Parliamentary review must respect our security needs: US President

US President Barack Obama told Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday he hoped a Pakistan parliamentary review of fraught ties with Washington would be balanced and respect US security needs. In the highest-level contact between the uneasy allies since US commandos killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani military town last May, Obama conceded relations had been strained in recent months.
Pakistan's co-operation is considered critical to US efforts to stabilise Afghanistan before most foreign combat troops leave at the end of 2014. Pakistan has strong traditional links with the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups. Pakistan's parliament has been drawing up recommendations on how to proceed on ties with Washington, including a halt to US drone strikes in the country that have enraged many Pakistanis.
"I welcome the fact that the parliament in Pakistan is reviewing, after some extensive study, the nature of this relationship," Obama said at the start of the meeting on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in Seoul. "I think that it's important for us to get it right."
Both leaders expressed a desire to stabilise and secure the situation in the long Afghan war, which has been beset by setbacks, including a massacre of Afghan civilians by a US soldier and attacks on Nato troops by their colleagues in the Afghan security forces. "We are both interested in a stable and secure Afghanistan and a stable and secure region," Obama said. Gilani said: "We are committed to fighting against extremism. We want stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We want to work together with you," he told Obama. "There have been times - I think we should be candid - over the last several months where those relations have had periods of strains, but I welcome the fact that the parliament of Pakistan is reviewing, after some extensive study, the nature of this relationship," Obama said at the start of the meeting.
Gilani expressed appreciation for Obama's respect for Pakistani sovereignty and said that his country was working for peace and prosperity. "We want to work together with you," he said. The Pakistani leader said his government will follow the guidelines set down by the parliamentary review of relations with the US.
Both leaders also resolved to cooperate on achieving peace in war-torn Afghanistan. "This was a meeting that made important progress in both sides being able to hear directly from one another about what their views are of the various interests on which we have co-operated," said Ben Rhodes, a top Obama aide.
But Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, declined to go into details about what kind of counter-terrorism operations the two men discussed. He did not say whether controversial CIA drone strikes were on the agenda. There was also no indication whether Obama and Gilani discussed the killing of al Qaeda leader bin Laden in Abbottabad last May in a US Navy SEAL operation carried out without Islamabad's knowledge.
The White House parried the question of whether drone strikes had been discussed during their meeting, saying only that on counter-terrorism, the leaders reviewed how to ensure an ongoing dialogue to improve co-operation. Gilani said he was pleased to hear Obama talk about sovereignty, and both men spoke of their mutual interest in a stable Pakistan and Afghanistan, putting a measured public face on what has become a severely damaged diplomatic relationship.
Islamabad called the commando raid a violation of its sovereignty, deeply straining ties between the two nations, which sank even further in November when Nato forces in Afghanistan killed 24 Pakistani border soldiers by mistake. "There have been times - I think we should be frank - in the last several months where those relations have experienced strains," Obama said.
Pakistan shut off ground supply lines to the US-led Nato mission in land-locked Afghanistan in the wake of the attack, and forced US personnel off a base used to launch drone strikes against militants along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Obama said he hoped the parliamentary review would take a "balanced approach that respects Pakistan's sovereignty, but also respects our concerns with respect to our national security and our needs to battle terrorists who have targeted us in the past".
This was the sole reference to Bin Laden, whose killing in a military town within several hours' drive of the Pakistani capital strained US belief that he could have lived there for years without the knowledge of someone in the government. Speaking after the meeting, White House national security council spokesman Ben Rhodes said it had made "important progress in both sides, being able to hear directly from one another about what their views are".