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As Clinton Visits, Pakistan Seals Afghan Trade Pact
By MARK LANDLERPublished: July 18, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a landmark trade agreement on Sunday, symbolizing a recent thaw between the two long-suspicious neighbors and handing the Obama administration a rare victory in its efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and bolster its troubled war effort there.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani of Pakistan in Islamabad.
President Obama had prodded the two countries to sign the agreement, calculating that it would aid the Afghan economy by expanding its trade routes and help to curb rampant smuggling. The pact would, among other things, give land-locked Afghanistan access to Pakistani ports.
Trade negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have dragged on fitfully since 1965, interrupted by wars, political coups, mutual distrust, and the long shadow of India, which is not a party to the deal. The accord must still be ratified by the parliaments of both countries.
The United States used a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Islamabad and a major conference in Afghanistan this week to nudge both sides across the finish line.
Bringing Islamabad and Kabul together has been a goal of this administration from the beginning, the administrations special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, said. This is a vivid demonstration of the two countries coming closer together.
The trade deal, however, is just one small piece of a complex relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan that the United States is trying to manage. American officials have long accused Pakistan of providing clandestine support to militants who attack American-led forces in Afghanistan even as the Pakistanis say they support the United States war there.
And while American leaders have encouraged warming ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan, they are also fearful that Pakistani officials want to exert too much control over their neighbors politics.
The ultimate success of the trade deal, meanwhile, is far from assured. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani alluded to domestic fallout at a meeting with Mrs. Clinton, who arrived under heavy security on Sunday.
There are people; there are lobbies who dont want this, Mr. Gilani said, noting that its opponents were agitating in the news media. But he added, It is in the interest of Pakistan to have a stable Afghanistan.
In its simplest terms, the trade agreement would allow Afghan trucks carry goods to Pakistani ports like Karachi or Indian border posts, like Wagah, while Pakistani trucks could travel into Afghanistan. Under current laws, goods must be switched to local trucks at the border.
Still, the accord set a positive tone for Mrs. Clintons visit, which is meant to ease suspicions between Pakistan and the United States. She came with a raft of initiatives in public health, water distribution, and agriculture for Pakistan, to be funded by $500 million in American economic aid.
Among other things, the United States will build a 60-bed hospital in Karachi and help farmers export their mangoes.
These projects, however beneficial to this economically-fragile country, do not disguise several nagging sources of friction between the two sides. American officials still question Pakistans commitment to root out Taliban insurgents in its frontier areas, its motives in reaching out to war-torn Afghanistan, and its determination to expand its own nuclear program.
Pakistan plans to buy two nuclear reactors from China a deal which alarms the United States because its details are cloaked in secrecy and are being conducted outside the global nonproliferation regime. Administration officials said they did not know if Mrs. Clinton planned to raise the purchase.
Relations could be further tested if the Obama administration decides to place a major insurgent group, the Haqqani network, on the State Departments list of terrorist organizations. Islamabad maintains ties to the group through its intelligence service, and American officials worry that it is seeking to exploit those connections as a way to extend its influence over Afghanistan.
For all that, tensions between the two sides have ebbed since Mrs. Clintons last visit here in October, when she was peppered with hostile questions in public meetings and bluntly suggested that people in the Pakistani government know the whereabouts of Al Qaedas leaders.
Mr. Holbrooke noted a U-turn in Pakistans policy on issuing visas to American diplomats. For months, Pakistani officials had held up those applications, creating a huge backlog and frustrating the United States. But Pakistan issued 450 visas in the last five days, he said.
He conceded that public-opinion polls about attitudes toward the United States had yet to show much of a change. Mrs. Clinton may take more hits on Monday at a town-hall meeting in Islamabad.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was greeted by Ghalib Iqbal, Pakistans chief of protocol, in Islamabad on Sunday.
The United States is encouraged by the burgeoning dialogue between President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Pakistani leaders, including the chief of staff of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Any resolution of the war, Mr. Holbrooke said, must involve Pakistan.
While American officials would like to see a more aggressive Pakistani military push in North Waziristan, the stronghold of the Haqqani network, they praise the militarys campaigns in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley, where Taliban insurgents had also made gains.
Pakistans battle against insurgents has incited them to stage many attacks within the country, exacting a fearsome civilian toll. A suicide bomber recently killed 45 people, and injured 175, in an attack on a 1,000-year-old Sufi shrine in Lahore. Many Pakistanis blame the American-led war in Afghanistan for fomenting Islamist terrorism.
A coalition of protest groups issued a statement Sunday, timed to Mrs. Clintons arrival, which calls for an end to the war in Afghanistan and for Americans and Pakistanis who are involved in clandestine air strikes on Pakistani targets to be tried for war crimes.
Mrs. Clintons initiatives are the first major disbursements of $7.5 billion in non-military aid, over five years, pledged by Congress last year. The emphasis is on basic services like electricity and water, politically-charged issues in this country, particularly during the hot summer.
Our commitment is broad and deep, said Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, who is with Mrs. Clinton.
Administration officials said the project to upgrade Pakistans creaky power grid, which involves building dams and refurbishing power plants, had helped reduce chronic power outages. But on the day Mrs. Clinton landed, television reports here warned of further outages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/world/asia/19diplo.html?_r=1&ref=world
