WASHINGTON, April 6 (UPI) -- U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad Tuesday reminded Pakistan it still has to destroy rebel sanctuaries along the Afghan border.
Khalilzad, who is visiting Washington, had suggested Monday that U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan may enter Pakistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaida hideouts if the Pakistanis fail to do the job.
His comments caused uproar in Islamabad where a spokesman for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs said the U.S. envoy's comments were "unwarranted and uncalled for."
"Mr. Khalilzad is not aware of the realities on the ground ... and is perhaps also unaware of the position of his own government," said spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani.
"The U.S. administration at the highest level has greatly appreciated Pakistan's effort in eliminating and rooting out the terrorist infrastructure and the al-Qaida elements from Pakistan. Pakistan also is quite capable of taking firm action against all undesirable elements and does not require external assistance," he added.
In Washington, the Pakistan Embassy raised the issue with the U.S. administration. "The embassy knows it is not the official position of the U.S. government," said Mohammed Sadiq, Pakistan's deputy chief of mission in Washington.
The angry reaction forced Khalilzad Tuesday to reverse his position. Instead of sending U.S. troops into Pakistan to fight Taliban and al-Qaida elements, he said he would rather have Pakistan deal with the situation.
"Pakistan is a significant country and we would like Pakistan to deal with the problem," said Khalilzad at a briefing at the National Press Club in Washington.
Asked if he still favored sending U.S. troops into Pakistan, the U.S. envoy said: "I am not here to discuss potential military operations or deal in hypotheticals. ... We want them to deal with these problems. We stand ready to help. ... These problems must be dealt with."
He said when he spoke of sending U.S. troops into Pakistan to destroy militant sanctuaries he was only suggesting "alternative ways" of dealing with this problem.
Khalilzad, however, insisted that al-Qaida and Taliban elements and fighters loyal to former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were still entering Afghanistan from Pakistan.
"(Pakistani) President Pervez Musharraf has said as much and I am repeating what President Musharraf said," he added.
Khalilzad also praised the recent Pakistani military operation in a tribal zone along the Afghan border, saying, "We appreciate very much the sacrifices made by the Pakistani troops but, ... Taliban and al-Qaida forces still remain."
On March 16, Pakistan launched a major operation against al-Qaida suspects in South Waziristan tribal zone, but called it off two weeks later after more than 100 people, including 43 Pakistani troops were killed.
Pakistani military officials later acknowledged that some al-Qaida operatives might have escaped through a series of secret tunnels.
Pakistan also had reacted angrily to an earlier suggestion by Khalilzad that Pakistani authorities were allowing Taliban and al-Qaida suspects to move freely in their country.
A spokesman for Pakistan Foreign Office, Masood Khan, had urged Khalilzad to be "a friend and promoter of U.S.-Pakistan relations" instead of making insinuations in the media.
Pakistan's strong reaction to Khalilzad's suggestions also aim at placating domestic opinion as the government faces severe criticism at home for ordering the March 16 operation in the tribal zone.
Pakistani opposition parties vowed last week to bring a million men to the capital, Islamabad, to prove that the majority does not support military operations inside Pakistan.
Pakistan shares a 1,500-mile-long border with Afghanistan, passing through high mountains and numerous gorges that are difficult to monitor. For centuries, these gorges have been used by invading army to enter the Indian subcontinent.
Afghanistan's Mujahedin fighters, who fought the Soviet occupation forces from 1979 to 1989, also used these gorges to carry out operations in Afghanistan.
Pakistan also has an agreement, originally negotiated by the British more than 100 years ago, with the local ethnic Pashtun tribesmen for not sending troops into the tribal areas.
During the last six months, however, Pakistan has deployed more than 75,000 troops in the tribal zone in violation of this agreement. So far the tribes have watched the deployments quietly, but Pakistan authorities fear that pushing deeper into the tribal heartland may lead to an armed uprising, like the one against the former British rulers who withdrew from the area in 1947.
Reports in the U.S. media, however, have suggested that it is not only the concern of a tribal uprising which has prevented Pakistanis from more vigorously pursuing the Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives hiding in the tribal area. They say that many in the Pakistani civil and military establishment still sympathize with Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and quietly support them.
Pakistan is the only country that had diplomatic and economic ties to the Taliban but Musharraf ditched his country's Taliban allies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and joined the U.S.-led war against militants.
