Pakistani FM conveys concern with US aid package

WASHINGTON — Just a week after praising a proposed multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package, Pakistan’s top diplomat returned to Washington on Tuesday to complain about language in the aid bill that Pakistan sees as outside interference with its government.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi met with the Obama administration’s top envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, and planned talks with senior lawmakers sponsoring the aid legislation.

The bill would provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year over the next five years to spend on democratic, economic and social development programs.

But Pakistan’s military has objected to language that links money for counterterrorism assistance to Pakistan cracking down on militancy and meeting other conditions.

The legislation, which has been approved by the U.S. Congress and awaits President Barack Obama’s signature, conditions U.S. aid on whether Pakistan’s weak, U.S.-backed civilian government maintains effective control over the military, including its budgets, the chain of command and top promotions.

Qureshi’s mission appears to be an about-face from last week, when he traveled to Washington to meet with senior U.S. officials. He told reporters then that the aid package was crucial to Islamabad’s efforts to fight terrorists and played down Pakistani military statements rejecting U.S. attempts to link the aid package to increased monitoring of anti-terror efforts.

Pakistan’s government last week questioned why the military publicly criticized the bill, which triples nonmilitary assistance to the country.

The dispute shows the strains between the fragile civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari and the military.

Pakistani analysts said the military’s stand had little to do with genuine dislike of a bill, which includes money to rebuild crumbling schools, roads and hospitals. Instead, the military is sending a message to the Pakistani and U.S. governments about the limits of civilian control in a country that has been subject to military rule for about half of its 62-year history.

The current democratically-elected government replaced Pervez Musharraf, a strong U.S. ally and former general who took power in a 1999 coup.

The aid bill, U.S. officials say, is meant to alleviate widespread poverty. Pakistan’s military, in an unusual public statement last week, expressed serious concern about the bill.

Qureshi said last week that the sponsors of the bill, Sens. John Kerry, a Democrat, and Richard Lugar, a Republican, assured him that the economic aid has no conditions attached.

Pakistan’s military has won American praise of late. Some U.S. officials, however, worry that Pakistan has not done enough with the billions in aid the United States has provided to fight terrorists.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is deemed crucial to U.S.-led efforts to battle extremists in South Asia, and the United States encourages Pakistan to crack down on extremists using the border region with Afghanistan as a haven. The United States has also staged attacks on suspected militants in Pakistan’s frontier area, mostly by missiles fired from unmanned drones operating from Afghanistan.