Swat peace treaty not an encouraging sign: Holbrooke

WASHINGTON: Troubled over Pakistan government's concession to the Taliban in the Swat Valley, a top Obama administration official has said the US would not like "bad guys" to get hold of any territory in the country.

"We are troubled and confused in the sense about what happened in Swat, because it is not an encouraging trend," Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan told the PBS news channel in an interview.

Having just returned from South Asia wherein he met leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, Holbrooke said the Pakistanis are shocked at the fall of the picturesque Swat, which is after all a resort they all went to for vacations.

"So we have a situation in the area which is very serious. This is what we inherited," he said.

This is for the first time that an administration official has spoken clearly against the peace deal between the Taliban and the Pakistan government.

"Previous ceasefires have broken down and we do not want to see territory ceded to the bad guys. The people who took over Swat are very bad people," Holbrooke said.

The issue, he said, will be pursued during the next week's visit of a Pakistani delegation headed by Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Secretary of state Hillary Clinton had earlier said that Islamabad's efforts still needed to be "thoroughly understood" before making any comments.