14 October,2009 11:58 AM IST | | PTI
The US on Wednesday made it clear to visiting Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi that it was unlikely to make any changes in the bill for providing $7.5 billion aid and accused the army in that country of misinterpreting the legislation to serve their own interests.
"I know a number of countries have conditional aid based on meeting certain important criteria. I think the President believes this is appropriate. I think the opponents of this bill, as one of the sponsors said in the newspaper today, either are misinformed or are characterising this in a different way for their own political purposes," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"I listened closely to the concerns that were raised by the Foreign Minister and we talked about ways in which we can over the course of the next 24 hours set the record absolutely straight about the true intentions of the bill. It is clear from our discussion that the bill has not been characterised accurately in some quarters," Senator John Kerry, who co-sponsored the aid package, told reporters after his meeting with Qureshi.
Kerry, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the architect of the bill, would again meet Qureshi today for the second round of discussion.
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Qureshi also went to the White House to meet Obama's National Security Advisor General (Rtd) James Jones. "The meeting between General Jones and Qureshi was a part of our ongoing engagement with the Pakistani government and in keeping with the President's commitment to consult closely with our partners as we review our policy in the region," said Mike Hammer, spokesman of the National Security Council, White House.
Earlier in the day, Qureshi met Richard Holbrooke, Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, besides meeting Congressman Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Relations.
At his daily press briefing, Gibbs said US President Barack Obama would be signing the Kerry-Lugar bill into law as legally required within the mandatory 10 days of the bill being sent to the White House.
