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US, Pakistan try to repair ties after bin Laden

The deputy head of the CIA and a top US envoy launched a push to repair relations with Pakistan following the US raid that killed bin Laden, officials said.

Patching up ties could be difficult because Pakistanis are still seething that the US didn’t tell them in advance about the May 2 raid near Islamabad, and US Congressmen are threatening to cut off billions of dollars amid suspicions that elements of Pakistan’s security forces may have harbored him.

Also, a newly released survey taken before the raid showed US popularity in Pakistan has fallen to an all-time low, with only 11 percent of Pakistanis holding a favourable view of the country and President Barack Obama.

But the US and Pakistan also have a strong mutual dependency that is difficult to break. The US needs Pakistan to help resolve the war in Afghanistan, and American funds are critical to propping up Pakistan’s economy and bankrolling its powerful military.

Marc Grossman, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, is scheduled to meet with senior Pakistani civilian and military leaders in Islamabad on Thursday, said US Embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez.

His counterpart on the trip, Michael Morell, deputy director of the CIA, is slated to meet with Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said Pakistani officials briefed on the visit. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The officials said that while they considered it a positive sign that a high-ranking US intelligence official was making the trip, they expected little concrete to come out of the meeting.

The relationship between the CIA and Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency is key to the US fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But the relationship was strained even before US Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town just 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Islamabad, and has reached a new low since.