US refuses to tender apology

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WASHINGTON: The White House said on Monday that it would not apologise to Pakistan for sending commandos inside Osama bin Laden`s compound in Abbottabad last week to kill him.

In his address to parliament earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that unilateral actions such as the US Navy SEALs swoop on Bin Laden`s hideout ran the risk of serious consequences, but stopped short of seeking a formal apology from Washington.

But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made it clear that even if he had asked for one, he would not have gotten an apology from the United States.

“We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani government seriously, but we also do not apologise for the action that we took,” Mr Carney said.

The White House official noted that even during his election campaign, Barack Obama had categorically declared that “if there’s an opportunity to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, and he is on Pakistani soil and this is the only way we can do it, to do it unilaterally, he will take that chance and do it.” President Obama did what he had pledged and “it`s simply beyond a doubt in his mind that he had the right and the imperative to do this”.

At the White House, a journalist reminded Mr Carney that Prime Minister Gilani’s address also focused on what his government saw as a violation of Pakistan`s sovereignty, and not as much on the issue of getting to the bottom of whether anyone in his government was complicit in sheltering Bin Laden.

“We will work with the prime minister and the president and other government leaders in Pakistan to work through our differences and continue the cooperation that we’ve had in the past that has led to so many successes in the fight against terrorism and terrorists,” the White House press secretary said.

Another issue highlighted at the briefing was the US demand for access to Bin Laden’s three wives who were taken into custody after the raid.

“We are in consultations with the Pakistani government at many levels about the matter you raised, Osama bin Laden`s wives and some of the other materials that may have been collected by the Pakistanis after the commando team left.”

Mr Carney said: “And we`ll continue those conversations. We believe that it is very important to maintain a cooperative relationship with Pakistan, precisely because it`s in our national security interest to do so.”

“Will there be consequences if Pakistan refused access,” a journalist asked. “We don`t anticipate happening,” Mr Carney said. “We obviously are very interested in getting access to the three wives that you mentioned, as well as the information or material that the Pakistanis collected after US forces left.”

Asked if the conversation with Pakistan would lead to access, the White House press secretary said: “I don`t have a specific announcement about what that cooperation will produce, but we do believe it`s important and we do believe that it will continue.”

Mr Carney noted that the US and Pakistan had had “an important but complicated relationship” and more terrorists have been killed on the Pakistani soil because of that cooperation than anywhere else in the world.

“Which is not to say we don’t have our differences, because we do. We obviously do, and those differences are frequently aired.”

Asked if he trusted Pakistan’s assurance that it would hold a full investigation to determine who was responsible for keeping Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Mr Carney said: “We believe that they will investigate it. And we hope it will be a full and complete investigation. But we are also, obviously, investigating ourselves.”