US withholding Pakistan's CSF for over a year

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US withholding Pakistan's CSF for over a year

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United States has been withholding Pakistan's Coalition Support Fund (CSF) for more than a year now.

25 January,2012 08:44 pm

The United States has not provided any installment of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) to Pakistan during 2011, sources informed Dunya News.The last reimbursement of CSF to Pakistan was released on December 24, 2010 for $633 million, they added.The coalition support fund is reimbursed to Pakistan for the charges incurred in the war on terror and the procedure in place since 2002, whereby Pakistan receives more than one billion dollars under the head of CSF reimbursement each year at an average.Sources close to the US administration confided that all military assistance to Pakistan has been on an unannounced hold by the US for the last several months.This assistance will not be resumed unless and until the issues in military-to-military relationship are sorted out, they revealed.The relationship between Pakistani and US security forces remained on the ropes throughout 2011, starting with Raymond Davis affair in January last year that aggravated further with the unilateral US action on May 2 for killing al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. The troubled relationship took a further nosedive when firing of NATO copters on Nov 26 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. US has refused to apologise for the action and Pakistan has rejected the CENTCOM investigation of the incident as being factually incorrect.A Pentagon spokesman, talking to Dunya News, stressed that the CSF reimbursement requests from Pakistan are still being processed.This policy has not changed as a result of the tension in relationship or November 26 cross-border incident, he stated.But we have also communicated to Pakistani officials on numerous occasions that we require their support in order to provide certain military assistance, Pentagon spokesman pointed out.Since May, the Pakistani administration has slowed some of our security and military assistance. This decision reflects the reality that some of these programs are tied to the level of our cooperation in our relationship, he said while indicating at the reasons behind the delay.With regard to military assistance, the United States remains committed to helping Pakistan build its capabilities, the spokesman said assuring of the US intention to try and build the sour relationship with Pakistan.--Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC