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Obama refuses to meet Zardari
In what is being viewed as a clear snub, US President Barack Obama has refused to meet his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, on the sidelines of the ongoing NATO summit in Chicago, even as hopes of hammering out a deal for resumption of NATO supply routes to Afghanistan remained elusive.
Zardari had accepted a last-minute invitation to the summit after negotiators indicated progress towards an agreement, but the effort has all but collapsed with Islamabad’s insistence on a heavy impost of $5,000 per truck as against $250 charged earlier on.
Obama “remained at loggerheads” with President Zardari, making it clear, he would not meet him without an agreement on the supply routes, The New York Times reported. It cited officials in both countries conceding that the deal would not be coming soon. “Zardari, who flew to Chicago with hopes of lifting his stature with a meeting with Obama, was preparing to leave empty-handed as the two countries continued to feel the repercussions of a fatal American airstrike last November, for which Obama has offered condolences but no apology,” the paper reported, citing sources.
Officially, though, the White House maintained that a bilateral meeting could not be held with Zardari because President Obama had “a very full slate of summit meetings he has to attend”. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said the only bilateral meeting Obama did have was with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai “for obvious reasons given the focus on Afghanistan here”.
While Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has ruled out Washington agreeing to coughing up $5,000 per truck, Rhodes said, “We’re going to continue to work through the issue with the Pakistanis.”
“When NATO extended the invitation, we thought it would move the Pakistanis off the dime,” the NYT quoted a senior American official as saying, adding “it’s going to be really uncomfortable” for Zardari at the summit.
In the absence of a meeting with his US counterpart, Zardari had to rest content with a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the meeting, he renewed Pakistan’s demand to end drone strikes and raised the issue of delayed settlement of reimbursements. He also brought up the
issue of trust deficit between the two countries.
While there was no immediate word from the American side on what transpired at meeting, Zardari’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar cited the Pakistani president as saying that “bridging the trust-deficit was a must for Pakistan re-joining counter-terrorism cooperation with the international community”.
That Pakistan is still sticking to the demand that the US should tender a formal apology for the last November airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
This point was stressed by Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman in an op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune. Taking the stand that Islamabad has taken the first step by working towards restoring its NATO supply routes, she suggested it was time Washington tendered an apology over the cross-border strikes.
Rehman’s opinion piece appeared as the US-led NATO and international partners gathered in the third largest American city for a critical summit to secure support for peace and stability in Afghanistan beyond 2014, when security responsibility is fully transferred to Kabul at the end of a long war, which has seriously hurt Pakistan.
In what is being viewed as a clear snub, US President Barack Obama has refused to meet his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, on the sidelines of the ongoing NATO summit in Chicago, even as hopes of hammering out a deal for resumption of NATO supply routes to Afghanistan remained elusive.
Zardari had accepted a last-minute invitation to the summit after negotiators indicated progress towards an agreement, but the effort has all but collapsed with Islamabad’s insistence on a heavy impost of $5,000 per truck as against $250 charged earlier on.
Obama “remained at loggerheads” with President Zardari, making it clear, he would not meet him without an agreement on the supply routes, The New York Times reported. It cited officials in both countries conceding that the deal would not be coming soon. “Zardari, who flew to Chicago with hopes of lifting his stature with a meeting with Obama, was preparing to leave empty-handed as the two countries continued to feel the repercussions of a fatal American airstrike last November, for which Obama has offered condolences but no apology,” the paper reported, citing sources.
Officially, though, the White House maintained that a bilateral meeting could not be held with Zardari because President Obama had “a very full slate of summit meetings he has to attend”. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said the only bilateral meeting Obama did have was with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai “for obvious reasons given the focus on Afghanistan here”.
While Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has ruled out Washington agreeing to coughing up $5,000 per truck, Rhodes said, “We’re going to continue to work through the issue with the Pakistanis.”
“When NATO extended the invitation, we thought it would move the Pakistanis off the dime,” the NYT quoted a senior American official as saying, adding “it’s going to be really uncomfortable” for Zardari at the summit.
In the absence of a meeting with his US counterpart, Zardari had to rest content with a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the meeting, he renewed Pakistan’s demand to end drone strikes and raised the issue of delayed settlement of reimbursements. He also brought up the
issue of trust deficit between the two countries.
While there was no immediate word from the American side on what transpired at meeting, Zardari’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar cited the Pakistani president as saying that “bridging the trust-deficit was a must for Pakistan re-joining counter-terrorism cooperation with the international community”.
That Pakistan is still sticking to the demand that the US should tender a formal apology for the last November airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
This point was stressed by Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman in an op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune. Taking the stand that Islamabad has taken the first step by working towards restoring its NATO supply routes, she suggested it was time Washington tendered an apology over the cross-border strikes.
Rehman’s opinion piece appeared as the US-led NATO and international partners gathered in the third largest American city for a critical summit to secure support for peace and stability in Afghanistan beyond 2014, when security responsibility is fully transferred to Kabul at the end of a long war, which has seriously hurt Pakistan.
