US says Pak is at the core of its strategic concerns

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is at the core of America's strategic concerns, the US has said and made it clear that the economic and military aid provided by it to Islamabad would be linked to its concrete support to the war against Al-Qaeda.

US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who are here on a visit, said the top Taliban leadership is hiding in Balochistan province.

During an informal dinner meeting with select group of journalists hosted by US Ambassador Anne Patterson, Holbrooke said Pakistan is at the core of his country's strategic concerns.

Holbrooke and Mullen came to Pakistan from Kabul after meeting President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan leaders.

They were apparently told by Afghan officials that Afghanistan's problems lay exclusively in Pakistan, media reports said.

Asked if the US was winning or losing the war in Afghanistan, Mullen said that since the US was not winning, it could be said that it was losing it.

Holbrooke put it differently, saying neither the US nor the Al Qaida-Taliban network was winning it.