Washington:
There is no move by the US to begin the process of designating Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism, officials said, after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed the Congress that the Haqqani network is being designated as a global terrorist organisation.
Such a statement from senior US officials, who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity, came as a top Pentagon official had last year termed the Haqqani network as a veritable arm of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.
"Why isn't this a step towards looking at Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism at this point?" a journalist asked senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the action initiated against the Haqqani network.
"I want to just unequivocally state that this in no way is the consensus, unanimous view of this Administration; that we are making absolutely no effort to begin a process to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism," the senior administration official said.
"If anything, they (Pakistan) have been an extremely valuable ally in countering extremism and terrorism, and we are committed to continuing and maintaining and increasing that coordination and cooperation," the official said, when a journalist asked about the statement made by Admiral Mike Mullen, the then Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, to the Congress that Haqqani network is a veritable arm of the ISI.
"With regard to Chairman Mullen's comments, I hope you also remember that he took great strides at the time to say there was too much focus on the first part of his statement and not on the second part, which was that we had to continue that engagement, we had to continue our efforts. We are doing just that," the official said.
"So we have always said that we are troubled by safe havens that the Network has in Pakistan and that we will continue to work together with the Pakistanis to squeeze this, and there's more that we can do. This is part of that ongoing effort," the official said.
Another senior administration official said that there has been a misperception that there's some kind of relationship between an Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) designation and a state sponsorship one.
"There is none," he asserted.
"I think it's important for people to understand that there's no legal relationship between these things.
"In plenty of countries, we have had groups designated and it's never made any difference in terms of our deliberations regarding the bilateral relationship with that country, except of course to strengthen our resolve to work with them to deal with their extremism problem.
"So I think it's very important that that be fully understood," the official said.