Hillary concerned over civilian casualties at Pak-Afghan border

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she has personally expressed US concerns to both Pakistan and Afghanistan over civilian casualties in its attacks against militant targets in the Pak-Afghan border region, which she termed as a source of instability for both neighbours.

Clinton declined to comment specifically on any of the drone attacks on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border but indicated that as the Barack Obama Administration moves forward the issue of civilian casualties will be part of its assessment.

“I am not prepared to talk about that. I think that, as I mentioned, we are looking very broadly and comprehensively at the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and along our borders. I have personally expressed to both President (Hamid) Karzai and President (Asif Ali) Zardari our concern about civilian casualties. That is an area that, you know, we are following closely,” she told reporters at the State Department.

“And it will be as we move forward, certainly, a part of our assessment. But there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan are a source of instability for Afghanistan, for Pakistan, and far beyond the borders of those two countries. So there will be more to report about our views as to how we’re going to proceed in the future,” she added.

The Secretary of State said the Obama Administration felt it was imperative to appoint a high-level representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“With Afghanistan and Pakistan, there has been an ongoing review that was begun under the former administration that has put a lot of actions in motion.

“And we are engaged very vigorously in trying to assess what has been done before and what we are going to be doing. And we thought it imperative that we had a high-level representative” and in this case, Richard Holbrooke “to be guiding that process with us.”