Cutting off relations with Pakistan not in U.S. interests, says Hillary Clinton

Washington, June 22 (ANI): U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while commenting on the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan which is now in a troubled spot, said it was preferable to keep the cooperative relationship with Pakistan, than to totally cut it off.

"I completely agree it is not in our interests to cut off our interest, it is in our interest to do better direct and manage that relationship and we are asking Pakistanis to do more of and better," The Express Tribune quoted Clinton, as saying.

"I think that our relationship with Pakistan has been challenging for a long time. Some of it is of our own making. We are living with a country which has a lot of difficult issues both for themselves and then for us and others," Clinton added.

"They (Pakistan) have got to do more against safe havens inside their own country," she further said.

However the problem that prevented progress was that "extremists have an ace in the hole, they just cross the border they get direction, funding and fighters and they go back across the border," she said, pointing to how militants were able to escape to uncontrolled regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. (ANI)