Geo Pakistan

Good ties with Pakistan 'but not at any price': US Senator

Updated at: 0501 PST,  Wednesday, May 11, 2011  WASHINGTON: Pakistan must heed US "concerns" about its efforts to combat extremists, a senior US senator said Tuesday, warning he wanted to maintain good ties with Islamabad "but not at any price." Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin became the second senior US lawmaker in two days to express deep misgivings about relations with Pakistan amid ties strained after the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. "I think it's important that we have a good relationship with Pakistan, but not at any price," Levin, a Democrat, said. Levin said Islamabad should give US interrogators access to three of the al Qaeda leader's widows who lived with him at the fortified compound in Abbottabad. "That would show that they're trying to be responsive to our concerns. They ought to respond to our concerns," said the senator, who cautioned that cooperation against extremists "should not be dependent upon certain moods of either party." Levin said Washington should formally object to Pakistan leaking the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad "if they leaked it," but acknowledged that this would be unlikely to have much force amid anti-US anger there. "They're trying to show that they're not responding affirmatively to too many things we're asking for these days," he told reporters. (AFP)