ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani army Thursday rejected what it called “negative propaganda” by the United States, hours after the top US military officer accused the country's spy agency of continued links to a powerful Afghan Taliban faction. The unusually strident back and forth reflected the poor state of relations between the two counterterrorism allies, which sunk to new lows after an American CIA contractor in January shot and killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him. While officials from both nations have raised the level of rhetoric, they have also spoken of the need to keep the partnership intact. Washington needs Pakistani support, even if not as whole-hearted as it would like, to be able to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this summer, while Islamabad relies heavily on US civilian and military aid. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said Wednesday he would bring up the issue of Pakistan's ties to the militant Haqqani network when he saw Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani later the same day in Islamabad. The Haqqani network is a largely independent Afghan Taliban faction with bases in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region just across the border from Afghanistan. It is considered one of the most lethal forces battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. “The ISI has a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani network, that doesn't mean everybody in the ISI but it's there ... I believe over time that has got to change,” Mullen said in the GEO TV interview. In a statement issued after he saw Mullen, Kayani did not mention the Haqqanis, and said both sides were determined to keep their relationship intact. The statement said Kayani told Mullen that he “strongly rejects negative propaganda (about) Pakistan not doing enough”. He also said the army's multiple offensives against insurgent groups in the northwest are evidence of Pakistan's “national resolve to defeat terrorism.” Kayani also slammed the ongoing US missile strikes in Pakistan. Those strikes usually hit North Waziristan, where the Haqqanis are based and the one tribal region along the Afghan border where the army has not staged an offensive despite US pleas.
