Pakistan rejects US appeal to reopen liaison offices

ISLAMABAD: Despite a visit by Hillary Clinton to mend ties, Pakistani leaders reject appeals not to close military intelligence sharing centers and say they will review the US drone campaign. Clinton presses Pakistan to do more against militants, Los Angeles Times reported.
Pakistani officials angered by the secret US raid that killed Osama bin Laden declared they would conduct a full review of operations by US drone aircraft over the country and rebuffed an appeal by visiting US officials not to close military intelligence liaison centers, US and Pakistani officials said.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Islamabad on Friday in a bid to ease the mistrust deepened by the secret May 2 raid that killed the Al Qaeda chief.
Pakistani leaders see the raid as a blatant violation of their country’s sovereignty, and Washington’s decision to not inform Islamabad in advance as an example of a glaring lack of trust. For the US, Bin Laden’s presence in the military city of Abbottabad, just 35 miles from the capital, renewed long held suspicions among many in the US that Pakistan’s intelligence community, or elements within it, knew that the Al Qaeda leader was there and did nothing about it.
Clinton, in a meeting with President Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and other leaders, emphasized that the US has seen no evidence that anyone in the upper echelons of Pakistani leadership knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.
Officials on both sides described Friday’s meeting as blunt, and acknowledged that serious disagreements remained. But they said the two sides also agreed that the relationship is mutually beneficial.
A senior US official in Washington said that Pakistani officials rebuffed a US request not to close the liaison offices in Peshawar and Quetta that have been used to share intelligence on militants with Pakistani ground forces.
Pakistan recently ordered US special operations personnel at the so-called “intelligence fusion cells” to leave the country, a setback for US efforts to form closer ties with Pakistani units fighting militants along with the border with Afghanistan. US officials remain hopeful that they can persuade Islamabad to allow the US personnel to reestablish the intelligence-sharing centers, the official said.
Pakistani officials said Zardari also said his government intended to review all aspects of operations by unmanned US drone aircraft. The campaign of drone airstrikes is deeply unpopular among Pakistanis.