The United States and Pakistan commit to a long-term strategic partnership

The United States and Pakistan commit to a long-term strategic partnership

"This is a meeting between equals," said U.S. military officials. In recent years, misperceptions and mistrust have grown between the United States and Pakistan. On March 24, 2010, the two countries held their first Strategic Dialogue at the Ministerial level Washington, D.C., that is to say at the highest level of civilian democratic leadership. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi co-chaired the talks.

Topics for discussion included economic development, water and energy, education, communications and public diplomacy, agriculture, and security. Also were participating Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, the adviser to the prime minister on social issues, Wazir Ali; the adviser to the prime minister on agriculture and water, Majid Ullah; the chief of staff of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and many others. Among the American delegation, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, National Security Council Senior Director David Lipton, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Rajiv Shah, and others participated.

U.S. President Obama has repeatedly stressed the breadth and depth of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Extremist groups still threaten both Pakistan’s security and stability in the larger region and American national security as well. "We’ve been working this past year to qualitatively change the nature of our relationship between the United States and Pakistan," Clinton told in an interview with Dunya TV.