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Pakistan must address Taliban ‘sanctuary’: US

* US spy chief says it’s one of the issues right on the front burner

WASHINGTON: Pakistan must do more to address the “sanctuary” that Taliban fighters enjoy in Pakistan before security can improve in Afghanistan, the head of US spy operations said on Thursday.

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in testimony before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee that “we all agree that the question of a sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan is problematic.”

“There’s a recognition that unless and until something is done to more definitively address that question, it’s always going to be more of a challenge to address the security problems that arise in Afghanistan,” Negroponte said. “This is a problem that we’re actively working.”

US officials discuss the problem with Pakistan with “great, great regularity and more work needs to be done on that,” Negroponte told lawmakers. He added that Pakistan “over the past several years, they have put a lot of Al Qaeda and foreign fighters out of commission during that period of time. So I have no doubt whatsoever about their commitment to the war.”

Representative Mike Rogers told Negroponte on Thursday that he considered a September deal between the Pakistani government and tribal elders of the North Waziristan region, on the border with Afghanistan, a “fundamental failure” and a probable detriment to US security. “It just didn’t work,” he said of the deal by which the tribes agreed to halt attacks on Pakistani forces and expel foreign fighters. US officials have said the tribes have failed to abide by many of the deal’s terms.

Negroponte said “it’s one of these issues that is right on the front burner, as far as we’re concerned, in terms of security preoccupations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It’s a subject that we discuss frequently in our dialogue with the government of Pakistan.” He offered to provide lawmakers more details in a meeting closed to the public. ap

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