By ANNE GEARAN
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — President Barack Obama, closing a nuclear security summit Tuesday, sought a thaw in the diplomatic chill with Pakistan, a critical but difficult U.S. partner whose nuclear weapons and historical links to terrorism make its arsenal among the world’s most vulnerable.
“There have been times — I think we should be frank — in the last several months where those relations have experienced strains,” Obama told Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Their meeting broke a four-month moratorium on direct top level contacts between the United States and Pakistan. Obama and Gilani were among more than 50 leaders who met here to reaffirm controls on nuclear material that might be bought or stolen by terrorists for a bomb. Obama headed back to Washington after the summit ended.
Pakistan is a key U.S. counterterrorism partner and its cooperation is essential for drawing down the American-led war in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, developed outside the international standards endorsed by the United States, are a principal reason the U.S. struggles to promote a stable and friendly government there.
Ties with Pakistan deteriorated last year after the military raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, when the United States kept Pakistani officials in the dark about the operation.
Relations ruptured further when U.S. forces killed 24 Pakistani forces in November in what the United States says was a case of mistaken identity. Pakistan broke off high-level ties with the U.S. following that incident and launched a debate about new terms of engagement with the U.S., including on the sensitive issue of CIA drone strikes on targets inside Pakistani borders.
Obama said the U.S. and Pakistan are seeking a balanced partnership that respects Pakistan’s sovereignty “but also respects our concerns with respect to our national security and our needs to battle terrorists who have targeted us in the past.”
Gilani said he was pleased by the reference to sovereignty.
He did not address the sidelong reference to the bin Laden raid, which outraged Pakistanis.