In an unmistakable snub, US President Barack Obama left Pakistan off a list of nations he thanked for help getting war supplies into Afghanistan.
The omission speaks to the prolonged slump in US relations with Pakistan that clouded a Nato summit where nations were eyeing the exits in Afghanistan.
Obama readily acknowledged the tensions raise questions about whether Pakistan will help or hurt the goal of a stable Afghanistan. Continued mistrust between the US and Pakistan also threaten cooperation to eliminate Al Qaida sanctuaries and could undermine US confidence in the security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
“We need to work through some of the tensions that have inevitably arisen after ten years of our military presence in that region,” Obama said Monday. “I don’t want to paper over real challenges there.”
Pakistan is not a Nato member but was invited to the summit on Sunday and Monday because of its influence in next-door Afghanistan and its role until last year as the major supply route to landlocked Nato forces there. Pakistan closed those routes after a US attack on the Pakistani side of the border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
The last-minute invitation from Nato to join the Chicago talks was a sign of hope the rift had healed.
But it hasn’t. And Obama’s dealings with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari made that clear on Monday.
Zardari came to Obama’s hometown expecting a separate meeting with the US leader like the one accorded to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. But without a final deal to reopen the supply lines, no such meeting was to occur.
Obama, along with Karzai, did speak briefly with Zardari on the sidelines of a large group meeting on Monday. Karzai dismissed the encounter in an interview with CNN as a “three-way photograph taking…just a photo opportunity.”
That was after Zardari had to sit by as Obama opened Monday’s session with public thanks only to the nations north of Afghanistan who allowed expanded supply shipments to transit their territory to compensate for the closed Pakistani border gates. Pakistani officials played down the snub.