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Summary Pakistan and US have been urged to work together against extremists.
The US Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Mike Hammer has urged the need for Pakistan and US to work together against extremists.We have keen interest in working with Pakistan on common challenges to combat extremism, he said adding that the US administration was looking at how it could cooperate with Pakistan on common areas.Secretary Clinton, he said, was herself involved in this process because both Pakistan and the US were threatened by terrorism. The only way to deal with it is to work together against militants, he asserted during a briefing at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, DC.The Assistant Secretary said that the US government was looking for joint mechanism and ways to act against extremists. It is important to work jointly with Pakistan on counter-terrorism areas through working groups and other available means, he argued.Speaking about the tragic attack on Malala Yusufzai, he said that Secretary Clinton had joined in the global condemnation of the terrorist attack on Malala. This attack in Pakistan was cowardly and barbaric by the terrorists, he regretted.Mike Hammer said that Malala only wanted education like so many other girls of the world. Education is the key to a better economic future and we are committed to advancing the rights of women and girls, he remarked.On the issue of Syria, he categorically said that President Bashar-ul-Assad had no future and had to leave power. We will continue to work with partners around the world to put more pressure on Assad to achieve this objective, he opined.He termed the killing of a diplomatic employee in Sanaa as a tragic incident and stressed that all security-related details were taken into account for safety of US officials and citizens serving overseas.He said Al Qaeda wanted to harm US interests, but the war against terror was putting them on a path of defeat. We have been very aggressive in pushing extremists and well continue to do so, he maintained.-Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC
