Dashing hopes

ONE should have expected that US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher would be making a farewell call in the last days of the Bush administration of which he is a functionary and appreciating Pakistan's role in the US-sponsored War on Terror. But he chose to administer warnings against talks with the Taliban even those who would lay down their arms, ignoring that Pakistan had already done more than it could. Mr Boucher who is believed to have been on a fact-finding mission to assess the outcome of President Asif Ali Zardari's recent visit to China rounded off his three-day visit to Islamabad by telling the media at a briefing at the US Embassy that, "there is no money on the table (from the Friends of Pakistan)".