LITTLE ROCK — President Barack Obama on Tuesday said he’s confident the United States and Pakistan will be able to build a relationship that both recognizes Pakistani sovereignty and addresses American security concerns.
Speaking before talks with Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Obama said it was important for the two countries to “get it right” as they seek to restore ties that he conceded had seen strains. Last year’s killing in Pakistan of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and a November air attack by U.S. helicopters that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers angered Pakistan’s government and military.
Obama said he hoped to achieve “the kind of balanced approach” that respects Pakistan’s sovereignty while allowing the Americans to “battle terrorists who have targeted us in the past.” He was speaking to reporters in Seoul, South Korea, where both leaders were attending a nuclear security summit.
Obama and Gilani met as the U.S. and Pakistan are discussing the future of CIA drone strikes on al-Qaida and other targets in Pakistan’s northwest. Gilani’s government has refused to reopen border crossings into Afghanistan that it closed to trucks supplying U.S.-led NATO forces after the November attack.
After their talks Tuesday, U.S. deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters that the two men had been able to make “important progress” and were “working through the tensions.” Rhodes said the U.S. would welcome Pakistani participation at a NATO meeting in May in Chicago.
The United States needs Pakistan’s help as Obama withdraws troops from its neighbor Afghanistan and bids to negotiate peace terms with Taliban guerrillas and other militants, some of which find refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Gilani said Tuesday that Pakistan is committed to fighting extremism and terrorism and ensuring stability across its western border.
Pakistan’s military blames the United States for the November airstrike and has demanded an apology. No charges in the United States are expected because officials say the Pakistanis fired first, triggering confusion between the forces in a mountainous region.
Pakistan’s legislature last week began a debate on the future of the relationship between the two countries, a discussion Obama said Tuesday he welcomed. The country’s national security committee, in a report to lawmakers, demanded an end to all drone missions and the imposition of new charges on supplies for U.S. troops.
Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took a swipe at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Obama pointed to an uncooperative Congress to explain why he was delaying negotiations with Russian leaders over missile defense.
Romney, in a CNN interview Monday, had referred to Russia as “our No. 1 geopolitical foe,” prompting Medvedev to tell reporters in Seoul that the former Massachusetts governor’s language seemed out of date and “smelled of Hollywood” stereotypes.
“Regarding ideological cliches, every time this or that side uses phrases like ‘enemy No. 1,’ this always alarms me,” the Russian leader said Tuesday in remarks broadcast on Russian television.
“All U.S. presidential candidates [should] do two things,” he said. “Use their head and consult their reason” and “look at his watch: We are in 2012 and not the mid-1970s.”
The back-and-forth was prompted by an open-microphone incident Monday in which Obama could be heard telling Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” after November’s voting to consider Russian concerns about U.S. missile-defense plans.
“This is my last election,” Obama said. “After my election I have more flexibility.”
“I understand,” Medvedev responded. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” he added, referring to Vladimir Putin, who won Russia’s election March 4 and will begin a six-year term as president in May.
Republicans quickly pounced on that exchange, calling it evidence that Obama, if re-elected, would go soft on national security issues. Romney was highly critical, saying in the CNN interview that “Russia is not a friendly character on the world stage. And for this president to be looking for greater flexibility, where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia, is very, very troubling, very alarming.”
Obama returned fire Tuesday, telling reporters that he had merely been realistic about the problems of dealing with aRepublican Congress.
Romney on Tuesday also accused Obama of trying to ingratiate himself with the Kremlin as part of a pattern of “breathtaking weakness”’ in foreign policy.
“The Russians clearly prefer to do business with the current incumbent of the White House,” Romney wrote in an opinion piece on the website of the magazine Foreign Policy.
Information for this article was contributed by Julianna Goldman and Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News; by Kathleen Hennessey of the Tribune Washington Bureau and by Kasie Hunt of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/28/2012