'Not ready' for joint anti-terror ops with US: Pakistan
Officials said Pakistan was not against cooperation but will not allow US to fight militants alongside the Pakistani counterparts.
Pakistan plans to tell US secretary of state Rex Tillerson this week that Islamabad is not ready for joint action against the militants in the lawless tribal areas. Officials said Pakistan was not against cooperation but will not allow the US military to fight militants alongside the Pakistani counterparts.
Earlier this month, foreign minister Khawaja Mohammed Asif, who recently toured the US, said in a television interview that Pakistan has offered the US a joint operation against terrorists on its soil. However, he later clarified that he never said Pakistan could allow foreign boots on ground.
Mr Tillerson’s trip comes amid an uptick in Taliban violence in Afghanistan where US-led coalition forces have been battling to quell an increasingly bloody insurgency since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.
President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy aide would be told that Pakistan is willing to further strengthen the intelligence information sharing mechanism with the US in consonance with its national security, officials said.