President Obama said on Wednesday that the United States is deeply committed to helping Afghanistan and Pakistan defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist partners and in helping democracy endure and flourish in those countries.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke about her meeting with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday in Washington.
The president said America’s “lasting commitment” to the stability of the two countries must not, and would not, waver even though there will surely be more violence and setbacks before the forces of terrorism are subdued.
“We meet today as three sovereign nations joined by a common goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their ability to operate in either country in the future,” the president said.
Mr. Obama spoke after meeting with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan amid a day of conferences that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said was producing “some very promising early signs.”
The challenges for the United States in the region were underscored Wednesday by reports of dozens of civilian deaths from American airstrikes in western Afghanistan. Mr. Obama, who was flanked by the two presidents as he spoke late in the afternoon, said that the United States would “make every effort to avoid civilian casualties as we help the Afghan government combat our common enemy.”
The focus was on ways that Afghanistan and Pakistan, both unstable and strategically vital, could work with one another, and with the United States, to fight the militants who plague both countries. The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan, in particular, to crack down on the Taliban in the western part of the country, near its porous border with Afghanistan.
“Our strategy reflects a fundamental truth,” President Obama said. “The security of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States are linked.”
Mrs. Clinton made much the same point at an earlier briefing, suggesting that it would not be incorrect to think of Pakistan and Afghanistan as “conjoined twins” that cannot be dealt with separately as the United States tries to help each tame the forces that spawn terrorism and violence.
“The confidence-building that is necessary for this relationship to turn into tangible cooperation is moving forward,” Mrs. Clinton said. . “And I think today’s series of meetings is another step along that road.”
President Obama and Secretary Clinton described the three-way talks as focusing not just on military and diplomatic moves, but on attempts to shore up the pillars of society in Afghanistan and Pakistan — by “developing alternatives to the drug trade” in Afghanistan, as Mr. Obama put it in alluding to the traditional poppy-and-opium trade, and fostering grass-roots democracy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mrs. Clinton’s comments, while general and cautious, reflected her own meeting in the morning with Presidents Karzai and Zardari. Based on that session, she said, “the level of cooperation between the governments of the two countries is increasing.”
While Mrs. Clinton said she could not be too specific until after the two days of talks are concluded, she tried to dispel any notion that the conferences would produce little concrete progress. “I told each that coming out of this trilateral meeting, we will basically have work plans,” she said. “We’re going to be very specific. We don’t want any misunderstanding. We don’t want any mixed signals.”
The secretary also said she was “quite impressed” by the Pakistani government’s renewed efforts against the Taliban, efforts that followed harsh criticism by Washington of the leaders in Islamabad. She credited Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders for changing their perspective “in order to be able to see this threat as those of us on the outside perceived it.”
Congressional leaders and administration officials have expressed increased concern over the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, where insurgents have taken over territory just 60 miles from the capital.
Earlier, Mrs. Clinton expressed deep regret for the loss of innocent life at a news conference with Mr. Karzai and Mr. Zardari held at the State Department.
Mrs. Clinton and the administration’s top envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, held an unscheduled meeting early Wednesday with Mr. Zardari. The three huddled for an hour at Mr. Zardari’s hotel, the Willard, where they discussed steps which the administration wants the government to take to deal with the Taliban insurgency, according to officials from both countries with knowledge of the meeting.
Offering her perspective, Mrs. Clinton said she had reaffirmed with Mr. Zardari “our government’s strong support for him, as the democratically elected president.”
“Being able to say ‘democratically elected president of Pakistan’ is not a common phrase,” said Mrs. Clinton, who put in a surprise appearance at the White House news room. “And I think it’s imperative that we support President Zardari and work with him, as he extends the reach of the government, not only on security, as essential as that is, but also on the range of needs of the Pakistani people.”
With President Karzai, it was a very future-oriented conversation,” Mrs. Clinton went on. “We talked about the necessity to take real, concrete actions to make the kind of progress that Afghanistan desperately needs to see, to really deliver for the people of the country. In both meetings, I thought, each president was very forthcoming.”
Speaking at the earlier State Department news conference, Mr. Zardari said that his government would act. “My democracy will deliver,” he said. “We are up to the challenge.” He alluded to the United States’ own lengthy efforts to stabilize countries in the region. “Just as the United States is making progress after seven years of engagement in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we too will make progress,” Mr. Zardari said.
In his remarks, Mr. Zardari alluded to the assassination of his wife, the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was shot and killed after a rally in Rawalpindi in 2007. “Democracy will avenge the death of my wife, and the thousands of Pakistani citizens around the world,” he said.
The Willard Hotel session — held in advance of more formal meetings at the State Department and the White House — underscored the concern that has gripped the Obama administration as Taliban insurgents battle government troops closer and closer to Islamabad.
Administration officials are worried that the Zardari government will make promises in Washington to do more to contain the insurgents, but may not follow through once officials are back in Islamabad. Senior members of the Obama administration have been forthright in the last week about their concern that the Pakistani Army is overly pre-occupied with its traditional foe to the east, India, when the Taliban is taking over the western part of the country.
Mrs. Clinton also used her public remarks to announce a trade and transit accord to improve commerce between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which the leaders of the two countries agreed to conclude by the end of the year. Mrs. Clinton called the accord “an important milestone in their efforts to generate foreign investment, stronger economic growth and trade opportunities.”
The deadline of the end of this year to conclude the pact is notable because the two countries have been in talks on this agreement for more than four decades.
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