President Asif Ali Zardari played key role in ending stalemate in US-Pak ties

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari played a key behind-the-scenes role in negotiations that helped end a stalemate in Pakistan-US ties over a deadly cross-border NATO attack and paved the way for Islamabad's participation in a crucial summit on Afghanistan, official sources said today.

Zardari took the initiative to break the logjam in bilateral ties after negotiations faltered when hawks and the security establishment insisted on a US apology for the NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November. Pakistan had retaliated to the attack by closing supply lines for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Following meetings and contacts away from the glare of the media, the President indicated to the Obama administration that he would attend the NATO Summit to be held in Chicago during May 20-21 if the two sides could agree on some sort of a face-saving arrangement, the sources told PTI.

In earlier meetings with top US officials like Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who visited Pakistan early last month, the Pakistani side had been non-committal about attending the NATO Summit. An understanding on Zardari's participation in the summit was in place by the first week of May, well before NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen formally extended an invitation to the President on May 15, the sources said.

The President stepped in after protracted negotiations between Pakistan and the US over the past four months failed to produce any results. The security establishment, which found itself backed into a corner after adopting a hard line against the Americans, was left with no option but to let Zardari play a role to try and end the stalemate, the sources said.

Reports in the Pakistani and Western media have contended that Pakistani officials created confusion by saying that the US should apologise for the NATO attack after Islamabad concluded a Parliamentary review of relations with Washington. Pakistani has now apparently climbed down on the demand for an apology as Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar recently said the time had come to "move on" and repair ties with the US.

The decision-making regarding ties with the US was also affected by frosty relations between Khar and Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman, who was given the status of a federal minister by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on April 11.