US can’t abandon Pakistan: Hillary Clinton

The US has at last admitted that it was not possible for it to abandon relations with Pakistan and there was no possibility to move ahead in the war against terrorism without the moral and logistic support of Islamabad.

Speaking during a ceremony sponsored by the Center for American Progress Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday said that her country cannot abandon Pakistan but the South Asian nation must help solve Afghanistan s difficulties or it will "continue to be part of the problem."

“Pakistan must help US to solve Afghanistan's crisis and peace in the region.”

Hiliary said the United States had no choice but to work with Pakistan in trying to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.

"This is a very difficult relationship but I believe strongly it is not one we can walk away from and expect that anything will turn out better," she said.

"Pakistan has to be part of the solution or they will continue to be part of the problem," she added. "And therefore, as frustrating as it is, we just keep every day going at it and I think we make very slow, sometimes barely discernible progress, but we’re moving in the right direction."

It’s worth mentioning that it were the latest of the US officials series of comments exposing the difficulty of the relationship with Pakistan, particularly after Washington publicly accused its powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting a militant attack on the US embassy in Kabul on Sept. 13.

The head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has denied the US accusation.

The United States and Pakistan have bickered publicly since the former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told Congress last month that he regarded the militant Haqqani network as a "veritable arm" of the ISI.

Despite mounting exasperation in official Washington, dramatic change in US policy looks unlikely in the short term toward Pakistan, an unstable, unpredictable nation that has nuclear weapons and controls a key supply route needed to keep US troops fed and fighting in Afghanistan diplomats and experts said.