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Associated Press Of Pakistan ( Pakistan's Premier NEWS Agency ) - US says it understands Pakistan’s concerns on 26/11 tragedy, pledges credible probe
US says it understands Pakistan’s concerns on 26/11 tragedy, pledges credible probe
WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (APP): While acknowledging Pakistan’s concerns following the loss of 24 soldiers in November 26 NATO strikes on Mohmand border posts,
a senior Obama Administration official pledged a “transparent and credible” investigation into the incident to determine exactly what happened. “We have been in constant and intense dialogue with our Pakistani counterparts. We understand the concern. Frankly, there is plenty of concern on the American side as well,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said at the daily briefing.
The spokesperson was asked if Washington understood the profound sense of anger in Pakistan over the attacks.
Nuland was responding to a series of questions from jounralists in the light of an off-camera briefing held by the Pakistani Embassy in Washington on the Mohmand border incident, which threw the U.S.-Pakistan relationship into a crisis.
The Pakistani officials constructed a timeline of the incident in the briefing and presented their perspective of the events that took place, during the NATO strikes about three weeks ago. They also pointed out that the strikes continued despite their communication to NATO that it were the Pakistani soldiers and not militants who were being targeted.
At the State Department briefing, the spokesperson said she would not get ahead of the CENTCOM investigation, currently under way, to determine what exactly happened on the night of November 26, when two Pakistani posts in Mohmand tribal area along the Afghan border, came under NATO attacks, which according to Pakistani officials continued for about two hours.
“When this tragic incident happened, you know that every senior American called every senior Pakistani, from the President to the Secretary on down, to express our condolences and to pledge a full, transparent investigation. So we are doing that investigation now.”
In the aftermath of the incident, Pakistan - considered key to successful outcome of the decade-old Afghan war- closed two NATO supplies routes that course into landlocked Afghanistan and declined to take part in the investigation, saying the incident was a repeat of such attacks on the country’s sovereignty in the past. Nuland said the U.S. still remains open to Pakistani participation in the investigation.
“We also are very firmly committed to understanding what happened here because - you were right - we have had, in the past, similar difficulties coordinating and communicating on the border. And we’ve got to get to the bottom of what happened, we’ve got to learn lessons, because, frankly, we need to continue to cooperate here.
“We can’t either of us - Pakistan, the United States,or Afghanistan, frankly - allow these areas to remain safe havens for terrorists or for Taliban. So we’ve got to work this out, and that’s what we’re committed to doing.”
The spokesperson said she is not going to prejudge this report “until it is out and until we’ve had a chance to talk to the Pakistanis about it, work with them on it, and learn lessons from it, and improve procedures as a result of it.”
Questioned if the U.S. would hold people accountable for the incident, which never should have happened, the spokesperson replied: “You’re asking me to get ahead of an investigation report, which has not been released. But the idea is to investigate this fully, investigate it transparently, investigate it credibly, and then work with Afghanistan, Pakistan, ISAF to ensure that we learn the lessons and take it from there. So I don’t want to prejudge either what’s in the report or what the recommendations will be for improving the situation in any of the ways that you discussed until the report is out.” 
