Pakistan's ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) remains topsy-turvy centring mainly the situation in the war-torn Afghanistan. This is because Pakistan plays a vital role in shaping up of the affairs in the country where the NATO forces are stationed in large numbers to fight Islamic militants. However, the forces are expected to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
After a spell of close relationship, Islamabad-NATO ties seem once again moving for the bad times as several quarters in Pakistan are now demanding closure of the NATO supply routes protesting the American drone attack and recent killing of the head of Pakistani Taliban by such an attack. Opposition leader Imran Khan, the cricket star-turned-politician, whose party fared quite well in the last general elections, has called for the closure of the NATO supply lines through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (former North-West Frontier), which is ruled by his party. The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has not decided anything about the supply route, but gave ample hints of displeasure over the US drone attacks. Islamabad feels that the death of the Pakistan Taliban leader would dampen the prospects of its talks with the Taliban on violence and clashes that two sides want to end through discussions. The US has not tendered any regrets for the attacks, nor has it expressed any remorse for that. Washington said talks with the Pakistani Taliban are an internal matter of Islamabad.
Last year, Pakistan's relations with the NATO worsened fast as a sequel to an incident that left 28 Pakistani soldiers dead in an NATO attack in November 2012. Never before had the two sides come to such a pass where the strategic relationship centring the Afghan tangle was jeopardised so badly. Islamabad was furious over the incident as a national outcry demanded apology from the NATO and more importantly, the most powerful nation in the military bloc - the United States.
Islamabad also boycotted a meeting in Germany on the future of the war-torn Afghanistan. This decision had come as a sour point in Pakistan's ties with the NATO. Because of strategic location and other factors, it is almost inconceivable that any fruitful discussion on the NATO's role and policy on Afghanistan is possible without Islamabad's participation for understandable reasons. The talks in Bonn as such were not very fruitful without Islamabad's participation. However, the then President Asif Ali Zardari attended the NATO summit in Chicago later.
The killings of the troops had sparked off a series of protests and anger in Pakistan and the US was clearly the main target of this situation. People yelled anti-American and anti- NATO slogans across the country and effigies of US President Barack Obama were burned in a clear indication of the extent of the commotion. The development came close on the heels of several other incidents that had already cast adversely on the warm US-Pakistan relations. All these began from the killing of Al-Qaida top leader Osama bin-Laden inside Pakistan and other factors worsened the state of bilateral ties. Islamabad felt awkward and humiliated when Laden was spotted and killed in the garrison town of Abottabad by the American commandoes without informing the Pakistani authority. In turn, Washington was visibly unhappy as it thought the fugitive Al-Qaida leader could not have lived in Pakistan without the knowledge of the Islamabad government. The killings of the soldiers in the NATO attack seemed something like the last nail in the coffin of the Pakistan-US relations.
Pakistan took a number of steps at that time, including temporarily closing down the NATO supply routes to Afghanistan through its territory, and also asked the US to patch off its involvement from the Samsi air base in Baluchistan province. The US used this for manifold purposes including 'drone' attacks.
Pakistan demanded that the NATO and the US offer 'apology' for killing Pakistani soldiers, but the other side stopped short of that and expressed 'regrets'. This has not satisfied Islamabad. Even when Zardari was in the US for the NATO summit, the issue came up and the US and NATO once again expressed unwillingness to offer 'apology' while people in Pakistan demanded that at least it should be coming from the erring side.
What further exacerbated the anti-American sentiments in Pakistan was the allegation by the NATO that the attack had followed in retaliation of gunfire from the Pakistani troops from their border post. Islamabad brushed aside such accusation as simply 'lame excuse'.
However, the reality is that despite loss of soldiers, Pakistan could hardly afford to be isolated from the NATO, whose cooperation and assistance are quite essential in many ways. Likewise, the NATO and the US too needed to mollify the strong sentiment in their key ally by taking certain steps that would help check nose-dive of the ties. Islamabad attached certain conditions - the principal was the re-fixation of prices for supply of goods by the NATO. Finally, two sides agreed on new arrangements on routes by both making concessions on their positions.
Now, once again the killing of the Pakistani Taliban leader has created stress in the NATO-Islamabad relations. Pakistan has been asking the US to stop the drone attacks which often kill its citizens. The issue is quite sensitive between the two countries and no headway was made during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's meeting with President Obama recently in Washington. The US says it needs such attack in hot pursuit of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. But Islamabad objects to these attacks in its territory. Will Pakistan again stop the NATO routes to Afghanistan? The issue is also inextricably linked to broader Washington-Islamabad relations.
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