US vice president Joseph Biden raised with the Pakistani leadership the issue of militants' sanctuaries inside the country and sought to undo the misconception that America was violating its sovereignty during his recent visit to Islamabad.
A senior official accompanying Biden on his way back from his visit to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq told reporters that the vice president concluded that there is a growing awareness in Pakistan that extremism is a serious challenge.
"It is the extremists in Pakistan who are violating Pakistan's sovereignty and sullying its good name. And what we're trying to do is to help Pakistan restore full sovereignty," the Administration official said.
He said Biden during his visit to Islamabad talked about a number of misconceptions about US policy and intentions.
"And one of them is this notion that we are somehow violating Pakistan's sovereignty by helping its military deal with extremism," he said.
"The vice president has concluded from his discussions that increasingly there's an understanding and an awareness in Pakistan that at the end of the day, extremism is a problem that we both confront," he said.
He said there are different groups with different agendas, but they sometimes make common cause, and Pakistanis are increasingly coming to the conclusion that extremism writ large is a problem for them.
The official said the assassination of the governor of Punjab was an example of the threat posed by extremists to Pakistan.
Biden also raised the issue of sanctuaries inside Pakistan during his meetings with the leadership, he said.
"The issue of sanctuaries did come up, as we've said, also consistently. In terms of the effort in Afghanistan, dealing with sanctuaries is an important piece. I don't want to characterise the Pakistani response," he said.
Observing that Biden's meeting with top Pakistan's leadership, including the president, the prime minister and the army chief were very good, the official conceded that Pakistanis have resource constraints and there is still work to do.
"They have challenges that they have to face. And we have to work on it together," he said.
The official said US' relationship with Pakistan has been based on trends and policies built up over decades, and turning around problematic aspects of the relationship takes time, and it requires sustained dialogue and conversation.
"What we've seen over the past year is a significant effort by Pakistan against a number of extremist groups. The Pakistanis have moved a significant number of forces from the Indian border," he said.
