NATO supply: ‘Pakistan not given deadline to open routes’
US embassy representative says Islamabad moving in the right direction.
PESHAWAR:
Pakistan has not been given any deadline by the US to resume the Nato supply routes since it was already “moving in the right direction”, the minister counsellor for public affairs of the US embassy said on Wednesday while speaking to a group of journalists in Peshawar.
As the government prepares for renewed terms of engagement with the US, Washington has adopted the policy of “strategic patience” while both the allies have kept their language “very low” amidst recent developments, Thomas Miller said.
Appreciating the efforts to make the relationship more transparent, the US embassy representative said that “a stable Pakistan was in the best interest of the US”.
He added that billions of dollars were being poured into development sector in Pakistan to resolve the energy crisis.
“$80 million were being provided for the Gomal-Zam Dam,” he said about the project which envisions providing 25,000 houses with electricity.
Miller said that another $15 million were being put into the reconstruction of the Amandara-Munda headwork which is expected to irrigate 415,500 acres of agricultural land from the Batkhela Valley to the Swabi plains, reviving agriculture and benefitting over 200,000 people.
Miller said that the USAID was not currently advertising but added: “We have re-built around 200 schools in Swat.”
Keeping in mind the increasing anti-US sentiment across Pakistan, he said: “The schools are not targeted for that reason.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2012.
Pakistan has not been given any deadline by the US to resume the Nato supply routes since it was already “moving in the right direction”, the minister counsellor for public affairs of the US embassy said on Wednesday while speaking to a group of journalists in Peshawar.
As the government prepares for renewed terms of engagement with the US, Washington has adopted the policy of “strategic patience” while both the allies have kept their language “very low” amidst recent developments, Thomas Miller said.
Appreciating the efforts to make the relationship more transparent, the US embassy representative said that “a stable Pakistan was in the best interest of the US”.
He added that billions of dollars were being poured into development sector in Pakistan to resolve the energy crisis.
“$80 million were being provided for the Gomal-Zam Dam,” he said about the project which envisions providing 25,000 houses with electricity.
Miller said that another $15 million were being put into the reconstruction of the Amandara-Munda headwork which is expected to irrigate 415,500 acres of agricultural land from the Batkhela Valley to the Swabi plains, reviving agriculture and benefitting over 200,000 people.
Miller said that the USAID was not currently advertising but added: “We have re-built around 200 schools in Swat.”
Keeping in mind the increasing anti-US sentiment across Pakistan, he said: “The schools are not targeted for that reason.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2012.