US-Pakistan feud, French pullout decision overshadow NATO summit
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND STEVEN THOMMA
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama sought to wrap up a NATO summit Monday with a show of unity for his strategy to end the more than decade-old U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan in 2014, even as a feud with Pakistan and an early pullout decision by France overshadowed the last day of the gathering.
The dispute over Islamabad's closure of NATO supply routes arose in the meeting's first minutes. Obama used his opening statement to welcome Afghan President Hamid Karzai and officials from Russia and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors, but he pointedly omitted any mention of Pakistan.
Russia and the Central Asian states "have an important perspective and ... continue to provide critical transit for ISAF supplies," Obama said in his second public summit snub of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who sat nearby.
Obama also declined to meet with Zardari, whom the administration had invited to Chicago in the hope that his inclusion would clinch an agreement by Islamabad to reopen two NATO supply routes that it closed after U.S. forces accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops on the Afghan-Pakistani border in November. Instead, Zardari met Sunday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The two nations remain far apart on the fee Pakistan will collect for each container trucked from the Pakistani port city of Karachi. More talks are scheduled this week, U.S. officials said.
The alternate routes through Russia and Central Asia have kept U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan adequately supplied. But with some 32,000 American troops due to leave by September, the U.S. military needs the cheaper and much shorter corridors to Karachi to ship vehicles and other American hardware out of the region.
U.S.-Pakistani relations have been seriously roiled over the past year by a series of controversies, capped by the shutting of the supply routes. The administration needs Pakistan's cooperation with the pullout plan, including an American bid to start peace talks with Taliban-led insurgents who maintain sanctuaries inside Pakistan's rugged border with Afghanistan.
Fifty leaders of NATO states and nations that back the U.S.-led force in Afghanistan convened around a massive circular table to approve the highly orchestrated, prearranged decision to approve the final phase of Obama's strategy to "responsibly wind down" the war.
The conflict has grown deeply unpopular among U.S. and European publics enmeshed in serious economic plight, and Obama, who once called it "a war of necessity," has made the withdrawal of American combat forces the foreign policy centerpiece of his re-election bid.
Afghan security forces will take the lead in all combat operations by next summer. NATO's 130,000-strong International Security Assistance Force would support Afghan troops and police until it departs by the end of 2014.
An as-yet-undetermined number of American troops would stay on to train Afghan forces as part of a U.S.-led initiative to bolster Afghanistan's security, prevent a return of al-Qaida and strengthen governance.
"The region and the world have a profound interest in an Afghanistan that is stable, that is secure and that is not a source of attacks on other nations," Obama said Monday. "Over the past two years, we've made important progress. Our forces broke the Taliban's momentum, more Afghans are reclaiming their communities and Afghan security forces have grown stronger."
In what served as an unintended reminder of his decision to withdraw France's 3,300 troops at the end of this year - a year ahead of schedule - newly elected French President Francois Hollande arrived late at the session, taking his seat after Obama spoke.
French officials explained that Hollande had run overtime in a meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Read more here: US-Pakistan feud, French pullout decision overshadow NATO summit - Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com
Sometimes I can not help feeling when Americans say the transit routes are not important and then at other times they behave like a spurned woman-diplomatic not I would say- For all of those you that say Pakistan does what Americans say this clearly proves that this is not the case and Pakistan is quite prepared to displease Americans whether it be on Iran pipeline or elsewhere
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND STEVEN THOMMA
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama sought to wrap up a NATO summit Monday with a show of unity for his strategy to end the more than decade-old U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan in 2014, even as a feud with Pakistan and an early pullout decision by France overshadowed the last day of the gathering.
The dispute over Islamabad's closure of NATO supply routes arose in the meeting's first minutes. Obama used his opening statement to welcome Afghan President Hamid Karzai and officials from Russia and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors, but he pointedly omitted any mention of Pakistan.
Russia and the Central Asian states "have an important perspective and ... continue to provide critical transit for ISAF supplies," Obama said in his second public summit snub of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who sat nearby.
Obama also declined to meet with Zardari, whom the administration had invited to Chicago in the hope that his inclusion would clinch an agreement by Islamabad to reopen two NATO supply routes that it closed after U.S. forces accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops on the Afghan-Pakistani border in November. Instead, Zardari met Sunday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The two nations remain far apart on the fee Pakistan will collect for each container trucked from the Pakistani port city of Karachi. More talks are scheduled this week, U.S. officials said.
The alternate routes through Russia and Central Asia have kept U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan adequately supplied. But with some 32,000 American troops due to leave by September, the U.S. military needs the cheaper and much shorter corridors to Karachi to ship vehicles and other American hardware out of the region.
U.S.-Pakistani relations have been seriously roiled over the past year by a series of controversies, capped by the shutting of the supply routes. The administration needs Pakistan's cooperation with the pullout plan, including an American bid to start peace talks with Taliban-led insurgents who maintain sanctuaries inside Pakistan's rugged border with Afghanistan.
Fifty leaders of NATO states and nations that back the U.S.-led force in Afghanistan convened around a massive circular table to approve the highly orchestrated, prearranged decision to approve the final phase of Obama's strategy to "responsibly wind down" the war.
The conflict has grown deeply unpopular among U.S. and European publics enmeshed in serious economic plight, and Obama, who once called it "a war of necessity," has made the withdrawal of American combat forces the foreign policy centerpiece of his re-election bid.
Afghan security forces will take the lead in all combat operations by next summer. NATO's 130,000-strong International Security Assistance Force would support Afghan troops and police until it departs by the end of 2014.
An as-yet-undetermined number of American troops would stay on to train Afghan forces as part of a U.S.-led initiative to bolster Afghanistan's security, prevent a return of al-Qaida and strengthen governance.
"The region and the world have a profound interest in an Afghanistan that is stable, that is secure and that is not a source of attacks on other nations," Obama said Monday. "Over the past two years, we've made important progress. Our forces broke the Taliban's momentum, more Afghans are reclaiming their communities and Afghan security forces have grown stronger."
In what served as an unintended reminder of his decision to withdraw France's 3,300 troops at the end of this year - a year ahead of schedule - newly elected French President Francois Hollande arrived late at the session, taking his seat after Obama spoke.
French officials explained that Hollande had run overtime in a meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Read more here: US-Pakistan feud, French pullout decision overshadow NATO summit - Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com
Sometimes I can not help feeling when Americans say the transit routes are not important and then at other times they behave like a spurned woman-diplomatic not I would say- For all of those you that say Pakistan does what Americans say this clearly proves that this is not the case and Pakistan is quite prepared to displease Americans whether it be on Iran pipeline or elsewhere
