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WASHINGTON:
President Barack
Obama sees the
deaths of 24
Pakistani soldiers in a NATO
raid as a tragedy, the White
House said Monday, while
stressing that US-Pakistani ties
were vital to both sides.
White House spokesman Jay
Carney said Obama believed
Saturday's attack, which threw
strained relations into fresh
turmoil, was "a tragedy,"
adding that "we mourn those
brave Pakistani service
members that lost their lives."
"We take this matter very
seriously," said Carney, adding
that two separate probes --
one by NATO's International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
in Afghanistan, the other by US
Central Command -- would
examine what took place.
"As for our relationship with
Pakistan, it continues to be an
important cooperative
relationship that is also very
complicated," Carney said.
"It is very much in America's
national security interest to
maintain a cooperative
relationship with Pakistan
because we have shared
interests in the fight against
terrorism."
Pakistan earlier vowed no
more "business as usual" with
the United States, but stopped
short of threatening to break
the troubled alliance altogether.
NATO and the United States are
trying to limit fallout from the
attack, but Islamabad has shut
vital supply routes to the
140,000 foreign troops serving
in Afghanistan.
US State Department deputy
spokesman Mark Toner said
"we're concerned about the
impact of this incident on our
relations with Pakistan," which
he said had yielded results in
fighting Islamist militancy.
He also said "this is a
relationship that has
weathered significant
setbacks.... I don't think anyone
can deny that.
"But it's one that's also,
through every challenge and
through every setback, has
moved forward because it's so
vitally important to both our
countries."
Toner also said the United
States understood that
Islamabad was "reconsidering"
whether to attend the
international conference in
Bonn.
He urged Islamabad to attend,
saying it was "very much in
the interests of Pakistan."
Pakistan called the NATO strike
"unprovoked," worsening US-
Pakistani relations that have
been in crisis since US special
forces killed Al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden on Pakistani
soil in May with no prior
warning.
The Wall Street Journal,
following a similar report by
Britain's Guardian newspaper,
cited three Afghan officials
and one Western official as
saying Saturday's air raid was
called in to shield allied forces
targeting Taliban fighters.
NATO and Afghan forces "were
fired on from a Pakistani army
base," the unnamed Western
official told the Journal. "It was
a defensive action."
An Afghan official said the
Kabul government believes the
fire came from the Pakistani
military base -- and not from
insurgents. Afghan-Pakistani
relations suffer from routine
mutual recriminations.