Gates is poised to play the “our relationship with Pakistan is complicated” card again, no doubt.
‘Relationship with Pakistan is not an easy one’: US
PTI Jun 17, 2011, 12.11am IST
WASHINGTON: America’s relationship with Pakistan is complex and not an easy one, the Obama administration said on Thursday.
“I think it’s not a secret that our relationship with Pakistan is complex, that’s it’s not easy, that we have our challenges,” the new State Department spokesman Victoria Toria Nuland told reporters at her first news conference.
“But as we’ve said many times from this podium, as the (US) President has said, as the Secretary (of State) has said, the US has a profound national interest in working with Pakistan on terrorism, on extremism, on promoting democracy and stability and prosperity, not only in Pakistan but throughout the region,” she said.
“So it’s important that we keep at it, and we’re planning to keep at it,” Nuland said, but she refused to entertain questions related to the Pakistan Army Chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
“With regard to General Kayani and his internal situation, I would just send you to the Pakistanis on that one,” she said.