• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Pakistan to allow US forces to return: official

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, Jan 21 -- US military trainers will be invited back into Pakistan 'as early as April or May,' but the nation has ruled out allowing CIA drones back into the country, local TV channels reported while quoting a foreign TV channel.

Relations between the two nations have been at an all-time low since 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an inadvertent air attack by NATO in November.

The Pakistani parliament is reviewing the nature of its relationship with the US, and politicians are expected on January 30 to deliver a list of conditions for cooperation to resume.

The stipulations will include no covert CIA or military operations on the ground in Pakistan, and no unauthorized incursions into its airspace. Drones, which are the CIA's biggest weapon against militants hiding in the tribal belt dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan, 'can never return,' a senior Pakistani official was quoted as telling an American TV channel.

'They will never be allowed back, at Shamsi or anywhere else,' the official added, referring to the base in the country's southwest from which many of the unmanned aerial vehicles were deployed before the NATO attack in November.

In return, Pakistan would allow back US military trainers, including special forces teams, and a resumption of close cooperation with the CIA in targeting militants who use the Pakistani side of the border as a safe haven and breeding ground for extremism. It would also reopen the Torkham and Chaman border crossings into Afghanistan, which have been closed to NATO supply convoys since the attack.

Islamabad also would reopen its doors to high-level US diplomats after an embarrassing snub this week to President Obama's special envoy to the region, Marc Grossman, who was denied his request to visit Pakistan in the middle of his tour of South Asia.

'After this is presented to the Americans, a lot could happen very quickly,' the senior official has been quoted as saying on the condition of anonymity.

Congress has stalled much of the $2 billion Pakistan receives annually from the US in civil and military aid, and Pakistan will struggle without its full resumption.

**1422
Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30775182