WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama Friday assured President Asif Ali Zardari President of United StatesÂ’ help in overcoming PakistanÂ’s difficulties and challenges when the two leaders met at the White House, according to the Pakistani envoy.
The US President offered to look at new ways to help PakistanÂ’s troubled economy as he showed support for President Asif Ali Zardari at a White House meeting, officials said.
President Zardari flew into Washington Thursday afternoon for a memorial service later in the day for the late US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke who died last month at the age of 69.
“He (Obama) was very clear in asserting that the US wants to help Pakistan in overcoming its difficulties and challenges and also recognizes the successes that have been accomplished in fighting terrorism, building democracy and instituting economic reforms,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani said in a post-meeting Press briefing.
On his part, President Zardari said Pakistan wants to stand up on its feet economically and not remain a permanent recipient of aid.
Haqqani said Zardari expressed appreciation for assistance from the US, which in 2009 approved a five-year, 7.5-billion-dollar package for the key but complicated war partner.
Ambassador Haqqani said the top-level US-Pakistan meeting was held in a friendly atmosphere, countering media reports about a strain in the relationship between the two countries and that Zardari would come under pressure for starting military operations in North Waziristan.
“Nobody scolded anybody, nobody raised the question of Pakistan not doing enough, nobody said anything negative about the lack of support of either country for the other,” he said
“We continue to work positively in all areas of cooperation, political, economic, diplomatic, strategic, intelligence and military,” Haqqani said, underscoring the cooperative nature of ties.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Adviser Douglas Lute and, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan assisted the US president while Ambassador Haqqani accompanied President Zardari for the meeting.
President Zardari, speaking about Pakistan’s priorities and requirements, told his US counterpart that “Pakistan does not want to be a permanent recipient of aid. We want to be able to stand up on own two feet. And for that we need economic reforms and we are cognizant of that, and working on that and that Pakistan and the US are partners” in this respect, according to Haqqani.
For their part, President Obama and Secretary Hillary said over the next few days, they would try to find new ways to strengthen Pakistan’s economic reform process “while taking into consideration social and political factors as well as the overwhelming reality of the floods, which disrupted the economic growth last year,” the Pakistani envoy said.
Obama expressed his condolences over the assassination of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer. He appreciated Islamabad’s resolve to build a “moderate democratic Pakistan which is the strongest guarantee against terrorist threat in our region,” Haqqani told reporters.
“He appreciated the stance of the government of Pakistan in wanting to pursue the perpetrators of this crime as well as to continue to work towards building a moderate, democratic Pakistan, which is the strongest guarantee against the success of terrorists in our region.”
President Obama “unequivocally” stressed US support for democracy in Pakistan, the envoy added.
“Both presidents acknowledged the services of the late ambassador (Richard) Holbrooke and the great energy and strength that he had brought to the US-Pakistan relationship and agreed there was need to continue with that momentum to build the strategic partnership.”
However, Ambassador Haqqani said, President Obama made it clear that the meeting could not be a substitute for formal talks between the two anti-terror partners during an official visit to Washington by President Zardari later this year and President ObamaÂ’s own visit to Islamabad.
According to a White House statement, Obama told Zardari Friday that he was “looking forward” to visiting Pakistan later this year.
It also said the two leaders’ “discussion focused on our shared efforts to fight terrorism and promote regional stability, specifically on the importance of cooperating towards a peaceful and stable outcome in Afghanistan” and that Obama “underscored the importance of the US-Pakistan relationship and our continued support for Pakistan.”
The US President emphasized the importance of cooperating to promote stability in Afghanistan, the White House said.
Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington, told reporters that the two leaders voiced concern about rising extremism worldwide that he said was behind the recent assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and this monthÂ’s shooting rampage in the US state of Arizona that killed six people and critically wounded a member of Congress, Gabrielle Giffords.