U.S. Generals in First Pakistan Talks for Months
Two top U.S. generals will on Wednesday hold talks with the Pakistan army chief in the first such meeting since air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers four months ago, the Pakistan army said.
General James Mattis, the head of U.S. Central Command, and General John Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, had arrived in Pakistan and would meet army chief General Ashfaq Kayani later Wednesday, a Pakistani official said.
The November 26 strikes, for which the United States has so far refused to apologize, prompted Pakistan to shut its Afghan border to NATO supplies and evict American personnel from an air base reportedly used in its drone war against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The Pakistani army said the meeting would focus "on the inquiry into the incident and improvements in border coordination procedures".
A Pakistani security official, speaking to Agence France Presse confirmed that the American generals had arrived in Pakistan, but declined to give any further information until after the meeting had taken place later in the afternoon.
On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama met Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at a nuclear summit in Seoul, and vowed to rescue their troubled alliance which almost ruptured over months of mistrust and recriminations.
It was the highest-level exchange between the two sides since the killing of Osama bin Laden in a clandestine U.S. raid on Pakistan last May, which humiliated Pakistan and raised fresh questions about its allegiance in the war on terror.
Source: Agence France Presse
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