Washington: The United States has said that Pakistan government is “deliberately, wilfully and systematically” harassing and obstructing American diplomats in the country, marking a new low in the already strained ties between the two nations.
The harassment and obstruction has increased dramatically and reached “new levels of intensity”, said a state department report, which has urged Washington to take the issue up at bilateral talks with Islamabad.
The department’s internal watchdog said the harassment of diplomats had heightened since the May, 2011 US raid on a compound in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden and rose further after November Nato airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Islamabad to block Nato supply lines into Afghanistan.
“Official Pakistani obstructionism and harassment, an endemic problem in Pakistan, has increased to the point where it is significantly impairing mission operations and programme implementation,” said an internal report of the US state department office of inspector general on Thursday.
The 82-page report marked “sensitive but unclassified” described the harassment of US diplomats in Pakistan as “deliberate, wilfully and systematic” and said ending it should be a top priority in talks with Pakistan. The report cites the cases of harassments as delays in getting visas, block shipments for aid programme and construction projects, denials of in-country travel request and surveillance and interference with mission employees .
But extensive parts of the report are blacked out. The report noted that US diplomats have long been subjected to unusual governmentinitiated obstruction, but recently it has gotten worse. PTI
US mulling new covert raids in Pak?
US military and intelligence officials are so frustrated with Pakistan’s failure to stop local militant groups from attacking Americans in neighboring Afghanistan that they have considered launching secret joint US-Afghan commando raids into Pakistan to hunt them down, officials said. But the idea, which US officials say comes up every couple of months, has been consistently rejected because the White House believes the chance of successfully rooting out the deadly Haqqani network would not be worth the intense diplomatic blowback from Pakistan that inevitably would ensue. AP
The harassment and obstruction has increased dramatically and reached “new levels of intensity”, said a state department report, which has urged Washington to take the issue up at bilateral talks with Islamabad.
The department’s internal watchdog said the harassment of diplomats had heightened since the May, 2011 US raid on a compound in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden and rose further after November Nato airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Islamabad to block Nato supply lines into Afghanistan.
“Official Pakistani obstructionism and harassment, an endemic problem in Pakistan, has increased to the point where it is significantly impairing mission operations and programme implementation,” said an internal report of the US state department office of inspector general on Thursday.
The 82-page report marked “sensitive but unclassified” described the harassment of US diplomats in Pakistan as “deliberate, wilfully and systematic” and said ending it should be a top priority in talks with Pakistan. The report cites the cases of harassments as delays in getting visas, block shipments for aid programme and construction projects, denials of in-country travel request and surveillance and interference with mission employees .
But extensive parts of the report are blacked out. The report noted that US diplomats have long been subjected to unusual governmentinitiated obstruction, but recently it has gotten worse. PTI
US mulling new covert raids in Pak?
US military and intelligence officials are so frustrated with Pakistan’s failure to stop local militant groups from attacking Americans in neighboring Afghanistan that they have considered launching secret joint US-Afghan commando raids into Pakistan to hunt them down, officials said. But the idea, which US officials say comes up every couple of months, has been consistently rejected because the White House believes the chance of successfully rooting out the deadly Haqqani network would not be worth the intense diplomatic blowback from Pakistan that inevitably would ensue. AP
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