Islamabad: In a blunt message to Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday demanded greater cooperation from the country to "squeeze" the Haqqani network responsible for attacks in Afghanistan, saying Islamabad could not keep "snakes" in its backyard to strike its neighbours.
"It's like that old story - you can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard," Clinton said during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
"We asked very specifically for greater cooperation from the Pakistani side to squeeze the Haqqani network and other terrorists because we know that trying to eliminate terrorists and safe havens on one side of the border is not going to work," she said.
Clinton, who arrived in Islamabad on Thursday with a high-level delegation that included CIA director David Petraeus and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen Martin Dempsey, had earlier said the US intended to "push the Pakistanis very hard" to remove militant safe havens and tackle groups like the Haqqani network that are responsible for cross-border strikes.
She told the news conference: "We should be able to agree that for too long extremists have been able to operate here in Pakistan and from Pakistani soil. No one who targets innocent civilians, whether they be Pakistanis, Afghans, Americans or anyone else should be tolerated or protected."
Khar did not respond to questions about the US demand for action against groups like the Haqqani network, and said Pakistan's future strategies would be guided by a resolution adopted by a recent meeting of the country's political parties, which had called for giving "peace a chance."
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