WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has unfurled a long-term, non-military strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Clinton said that the new strategy called for sending more civilian experts to the region, besides boosting Pakistan’s capabilities to fight a growing Islamist insurgency and to enhance the US partnership with Islamabad partly through supporting political and economic reforms. She noted that the new strategy aimed at improving governance in Afghanistan and reconciliation with the militants, and added that it would also help in stabilizing Af-Pak. In terms of concrete civilian deployments, Clinton called for increase of experts in Afghanistan beyond the nearly 1,000 US civilian experts due to be deployed by now or in the next few weeks.