US Defense Secretary Gates visited Pakistan this week to help end a “trust deficit” between the two countries. Gates, speaking at a Pakistani military academy, acknowledged that the United States made a “grave mistake” after the Soviet withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989, by abandoning Afghanistan and cutting defense ties with Pakistan.
Gates urged Pakistan to continue its attack against militants in the northwest tribal areas, but was careful not to criticize Pakistan—which has lost over 2,000 soldiers fighting the Taliban—and said publicly that, “The Pakistani leadership will make its own decisions about what the best timing for their military operations is, about when they are ready to do something or whether they are going to do it at all.”
Read more at Al Jazeera.
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