US links Pak aid to border situation

WASHINGTON-The new US administration plans to increase non-military aid to Pakistan, but will link it to the country’s performance in securing the Pak-Afghan border region, according to the foreign policy agenda document released soon after President Barack Obama moved into the White House on Tuesday.
The document called the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan as ‘the greatest threat to our security’.
‘President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden will increase non-military aid to Pakistan and hold them accountable for security in the border region with Afghanistan’, it added.
Biden, as Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, authored last year a Pakistan aid bill with Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar that would have authorized a tripling of non-military aid to Islamabad, to $1.5 billion annually, for five years.
The cash was to go to help improve schools, build clinics, drill wells and reform police in Pakistan. In his former post as a Senator from Illinois, Obama also signed on as a co-sponsor.
The bill also calls for greater accountability on security assistance, to improve Pakistani counter-terrorism capabilities and ensure more effective efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Biden-Lugar measure was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July but never got a vote in the full Senate.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, underscored the need for placing on ‘fast-track’ the proposed Biden-Lugar bill, saying ‘Only strong democracy can fight terrorism in Pakistan’. Speaking at a reception he hosted to mark the advent of Obama administration, he urged the international community, specially the US, to come forward to support the people of Pakistan in their dream of making Pakistan a strong and stable democracy.