WASHINGTON — In the rocky relationship between the US and Pakistan, the mere fact that President Barack Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are sitting down together at the White House is seen as a sign of progress.
Few breakthroughs are expected on the numerous hot-button issues on their agenda Wednesday, including American drone strikes and Pakistan’s alleged support for the Taliban. But officials in both countries are hoping to scale back tensions that escalated after the 2011 US strike within Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden and last year’s accidental killing of two dozen Pakistani troops in an American airstrike along the Afghan border.
“We want to find ways for our countries to cooperate, even as we have differences on some issues, and we want to make sure that the trajectory of this relationship is a positive one,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Obama and Sharif talked on the phone earlier this year, but they have never met in person. Sharif, who served two earlier stints as Pakistan’s prime minister, has held face-to-face talks with Secretary of State John Kerry and was scheduled to meet with other top US officials while in Washington this week.
The prime minister’s visit to the White House comes one day after Amnesty International released a report providing new details about the alleged victims of US drone attacks in Pakistan, one of them a 68-year-old grandmother hit while farming with her grandchildren. In Pakistan, there is widespread belief that American drone strikes kill large numbers of civilians and Sharif is expected to raise the issue with Obama.
The White House responded to the Amnesty report by defending the drone program, with Carney saying US counterterrorism operations “are precise, they are lawful and they are effective.”
Also on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting will be Obama’s looming decision on whether to keep any American troops in Afghanistan after the war there formally concludes at the end of next year. Ahead of the US withdrawal, the US is seeking to push through a peace deal with the Taliban and Afghan government.
Pakistan is seen as key to this process because of its historical connection to the Taliban. It helped the group grab power in Afghanistan in 1996 and is widely believed to have maintained ties as a hedge against neighbor and nuclear rival India – an allegation denied by Islamabad.