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Pakistan says next US leader must stop attacks

by Dave Keating | November 4, 2008 at 05:16 am

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Pakistan's prime minister today said that whoever is elected as the new US president later today must stop the attacks and cross-border raids into sovereign Pakistani territory. The comments signal that the new leadership in Pakistan is set to try to forge a very different relationship with the US under the new president than ested during the Musharaf-Bush years.

The next U.S. president must halt missile strikes on insurgent targets in northwest Pakistan or risk failure in its efforts to end militancy in the Muslim country, the prime minister warned Tuesday.

Yousuf Raza Gilani said visiting U.S. Gen. David Petraeus "looked convinced" when he warned him the strikes were inflaming anti-American sentiment but that he got no guarantee the attacks would end.

Gilani's remarks in an interview with The Associated Press underscore how shaping a policy to deal with the militant threat in nuclear-armed Pakistan and its new civilian leaders will be a key task for the next U.S. president.

They also revealed the rising strain the missile strikes have placed on relations between the two nations seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forced them into an uneasy alliance.

"No matter who the president of America will be, if he doesn't respect the sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan ... anti-America sentiments and anti-West sentiment will be there," said Gilani in his heavily guarded residence atop a hill in the capital, Islamabad.