ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON - THE United States on Tuesday offered Pakistan US$110 million (S$165 million) to help people driven from their homes by fighting in the Swat Valley and said it was trying to redress 30 years of 'incoherent' US policy toward the nuclear-armed country.
Pakistani soldiers battled Taliban militants in towns in the picturesque valley, which is about 100 km from the capital, Islamabad, as authorities scrambled to get food to thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting.
The White House said the United States would provide US$100 million in humanitarian aid such as food, tents, radios, generators and other items and that the US Defence Department would give a further US$10 million in unspecified assistance.
'Providing this assistance is not only the right thing to do but we believe it is essential to global security and the security of the United States and we are prepared to do more,' US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.
Mrs Clinton also described the last three decades of US policy toward Pakistan as 'incoherent,' saying that the United States had worked with Pakistan to arm the Mujahideen fighters who helped drive the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in the 1980s only to effectively abandon both countries.
She said US President Barack Obama was determined to forge a long-term partnership with Pakistan to confront al Qaeda militants who are believed to have fled Afghanistan, where they plotted the Sept 11 attacks, to Pakistan.
'I think that it is fair to say that our policy toward Pakistan over the last 30 years has been incoherent,' Mrs Clinton told reporters at the White House, implicitly criticising the policies of her own husband, former US President Bill Clinton.
'I mean, I don't know any other word to use. We have walked away from Pakistan before with consequences that have not been in the best interests of our security, and we are determined that we are going to forge a partnership with the people of Pakistan and their democratically elected government against extremism,' she added. -- REUTERS
