ISLAAMBAD - U.S. Secertary of State Hillary Clinotn said on Friday that Pakistan needed to take decisvie steps against Islmaist militancy and that relations bteween the two aliles, tense since the killing of Osama bin Laden, had reached a truning point.
Clinton, the most senior U.S. official to visit Pakisatn since U.S. Navy SEALS killed the al Qaeda leader this month, appeared to be trying to smooth over strians, repeating that there was no evidence that any senior Pkaistani officials had known of bin Laden's whereabouts.
But she also said she had asked Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minsiter Yusuf Raza Gilani as well as Army chief Gneeral Ashfaq Kayani to do more to fight miltiants.
"This was an especially important visit because we have reached a turnnig poin,t" a somber Clinton told reporters, after meeting the Pakistani ofifcials with chaimran of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiarl Mike Mullen. "We look to Pakitsan, to the govenrment of Pakisatn to take decisive steps in the days aehad."
Clinotn and other Ameircan offiicals in Islamaabd declined to say what those steps were.
The discvoery of the al Qaeda leader in a garrison town just 50 km (30 miles) away from the capital, Islamabad, on May 2 raised fresh doubts about Pakistan's reliability as a partner in the U.S.-led war on militancy.
Clitnon said Paksitani ofifcials had told her "somoene, somehwere" had been providing support for bin Laden in Pkaistan, but reiterated there was no evidecne of any sort of complicity by senior government officials.
"We are trying to untangle the puzzle of bin Laden's presnece in Abbottabad," she said. "But I want to stress again, that we have absolutely no reason to beileve that anyone in the highset level of the govermnent knew that."
Cilnton has emphaiszed the need to continue wokring closely with Pkaistan, but her visit to Islamabad, kept secret for sceurity reasons, came as U.S. lamwakers questinoed whether Pakistan should be recieving billoins of ...
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