Terror havens,Indo-Pak ties to figure in Pak talks says US

“We will continue to talk about the issues of cross-border militancy and as we have stated in the past the reality that safe havens for extremist groups clearly threaten our interests,our allies in the region,and most of all really Sharif’s own ability to execute on his reform agenda and provide greater economic stability,” said the0 senior administration official.

“So how we continue to deal with those issues of cross-border militancy is something that will be a key piece of this conversation,” the official said as Kerry landed in Islamabad Wednesday night local time – the highest level visit from the Obama Administration after Sharif was voted back to power with thumping majority a few months ago.

“We expect the kind of the range of the issues at the civilian government to lead on,to really dominate,whether that’s regional issues,Indo-Pak,Afghan-Pak,but the economy,energy,and domestic extremism,as Nawaz ran on a platform of the three Es – the economy,energy,and extremism.

“We expect that much of that will be addressed in that initial meeting,” the official said.

In Afghanistan,he added that the US continues to receive kind of constructive cooperation from the Pakistanis,both on the civilian leadership and on the military leadership and publicly calling on the Afghan Taliban to join peace negotiations and try to continue to facilitate the reconciliation process.

Responding to questions on the issue of drone strikes,which Pakistani politicians have opined on quite a bit and the parliament has passed several resolutions about,the official said the US known that Pakistan wants a conversation about it.

“It will be part of a broader and very comprehensive discussion on the whole range of counter terrorism issues,” the official added.

“In terms of the nuclear piece,one of the five working groups that we have on strategic stability focuses on that piece of it under a kind of public framework,and that is the venue that we use for kind of that dialogue,” the official said when asked about possibility of discussion on nuclear issue.

“The whole purpose of this conversation is to have a very comprehensive,very robust,very serious,very real conversation on the range of our mutual and national security interests” he said.

He added that it will be hard to imagine that any issue that we think is one of our key national security priorities is not on the agenda

According to the senior administration official,the United States will continue to make the case that it has made very vocally,privately and publicly,for the last two years on the need for Pakistan to assert more control over these areas to be able to succeed in the ways that they most want to succeed.

“If they will only be able to confront their own domestic security issues,they will only be able to provide economic stability and a place for investment,they will only be able to have stable neighbors,if they take greater control over safe havens.

“It is a discussion that has had some limited success in some ways,but we will continue to make the case quite vocally that it has to be a key priority of the government moving forward to address this as seriously and as multifaceted a way as possible,” he said.