Differences between Pak, NATO over timeline for Afghan endgame

Pakistan's security establishment is trying to strike a balance between winning over the residents of the festive tribal belt in the country's northwest and cooperating with the US and NATO in the endgame in Afghanistan, security officials said.Any haste in seeking a final solution to the problems in Afghanistan may turn the Pakistani tribesmen against the security establishment, which does not want to get bogged down in fighting in the tribal belt that could "go on for decades", the security officials said during an interaction with Indian journalists.The differences between Pakistan and NATO were not just over a cross-border NATO air strike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers but over the timeline for the endgame in Afghanistan, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.Pakistan is moving according to a long-term plan and has differences with NATO over the timeline on Afghanistan because haste may turn the tribesmen against Islamabad, the officials contended."We need to keep public opinion with us," one official said.Last year's NATO air strike took Pakistan-US relations to a new low in the wake of a string of crises, including the killing of two Pakistani men by a CIA contractor in Lahore and the unilateral US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad.The downturn in relations also hit cooperation between Pakistan and the US over Afghanistan.A joint session of Pakistan's parliament recently approved guidelines for resetting relations with the US.