Pakistan seeks "clear terms of engagement" with U.S. (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called Monday for his government and the United States to agree on "clear terms of engagement" in the fight against Islamist militants to avert troubles in their relationship.

Zardari's remarks, the first such call by the Pakistani president, came at a meeting with the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman.

Pakistan is a strategic ally to the United States but the relationship has been on a downward spiral since the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a secret raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan in May without informing Islamabad in advance.

Pakistan reacted with fury to the May 2 raid, which it saw as a breach of its sovereignty, cutting back on U.S. trainers in the country and placing limits on CIA activities there.

"In the absence of well-defined and documented terms of engagements, wrong plugs may be pulled at the wrong times by any side that could undermine the bilateral relations," Zardari's office said in a statement after the meeting with Grossman.

"Terms of engagement should be clearly defined and specified so that any dispute could be settled amicably through the available institutions."

Zardari did not spell out the terms of engagement but they would probably involve more consultation on drone strikes, more oversight of CIA activities and a resumption of military aid.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States should be based on "mutual interest, trust and mutual respect," he said.

Grossman, who will attend a three-way meeting with Pakistani and Afghan officials to coordinate efforts to end violence in Afghanistan, said Washington was "open" to Zardari's suggestion.

TRAVEL CURBS

Pakistani officials and diplomats said Sunday Islamabad had imposed travel curbs on U.S. and other diplomats in Pakistan in the latest sign of worsening ties with Washington.

The U.S. State Department said it was working with Islamabad to resolve the travel issue, and declined to say whether it would impose similar limits on the movement of Pakistani diplomats in the United States.

"Speaking hypothetically or theoretically, reciprocity is always a consideration. In this case we are working with the government of Pakistan," department spokesman Mark Toner said.

The fact that the al Qaeda chief lived for years near the Pakistani army's main academy in the northwestern garrison town of Abbottabad reinforced suspicions in Washington about Islamabad's reliability in the war against militant Islamists.

There are also growing frustrations with Pakistan over its reluctance to mount offensives against militant factions in the northwest who are fighting U.S.-led foreign forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In a show of displeasure over Pakistan's cutback in U.S. trainers, its limits on visas for U.S. personnel and other bilateral irritants, the United States recently suspended about a third of its $2.7 billion annual defense aid to Pakistan.

Despite this, both sides have tried to prevent a breakdown of relations.

The head of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, visited the United States last month for talks with U.S. government and intelligence officials and lawmakers, which both sides said went very well.

(Editing by Gareth Jones and Eric Beech)

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U.S. deepens engagement with Afghan Taliban to end war: report (Reuters)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The United States has stepped up direct talks with the Afghan Taliban for a political settlement of the 10-year-old war, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, a move that analysts said earlier was easier following the death of Osama bin Laden.

A U.S. representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, including one "eight or nine days ago" with a Taliban official considered close to the group's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the report said, citing an Afghan official.

It said that Washington was hoping to make progress in these talks before July, when President Barack Obama announces the first troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, part of a process of handing over responsibilities to Afghan forces by 2014.

The report about the talks comes more than two weeks after the death of bin Laden at the hands of U.S. special forces in Pakistan, which analysts said helped clear the path for a political settlement in Afghanistan by making it easier for the Taliban to sever ties with his al Qaeda.

The Taliban sheltered bin Laden in Afghanistan for years, until U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled them in 2001, unleashing a war between U.S.-led NATO forces and the Islamist group.

But with insurgent violence in Afghanistan at its highest in years and falling domestic support for the war, Western nations, including the United States, have come to back Afghan President Hamid Karzai's efforts to seek reconciliation with the Taliban.

The Washington Post said the talks with the Taliban had taken place through non-government intermediaries and Arab and European governments. The Taliban, it said, had insisted on direct negotiations with the Americans and proposed opening a formal office, with Qatar as a possible venue.

The discussions were still preliminary. It said the Taliban had transmitted a longstanding list of demands, including the release of up to 20 fighters detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It also wanted withdrawal of all foreign troops and a guarantee of a substantive Taliban role in government.

The U.S. and Afghan governments want the Taliban to end all violence and to observe the Afghan constitution, including respect for women's and minority rights and the rule of law.

The report said the discussions were being conducted with the part of the Taliban that answered to Mullah Omar or had influence in his Pakistan-based Quetta shura.

It quoted officials as saying that no role had been played by the Haqqani network, a group of Afghan fighters based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region seen by the Obama administration as particularly brutal and irreconcilable.

The Haqqani network has had longstanding links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, seen to have used the insurgent group as one of its "strategic assets" in Afghanistan.

The ISI is under a cloud following the discovery and killing of bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, facing questions of complicity in shielding him or plain incompetence.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani;Editing by Ron Popeski)

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