Clinton says Pak nukes safe but terror safe haven troubling

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said she believed Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were secure and protected, but

maintained that the safe havens for al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists in the country were “very troubling”.

“The nuclear arsenal that Pakistan has, I believe is secure. I think that the government and the military have taken adequate steps to protect that,” Clinton told Mathias Müller von Blumencron and Erich Follath of Der Spiegel in an interview.

“On the other hand, the safe haven that al-Qaida has found in Pakistan is very troubling,” she said.

A recent media report had said that the US and Pakistan were negotiating secret understandings on allowing American troops to provide security to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the event of a crisis.

The report has been rubbished by both US and Pakistan. Clinton said Pakistan, which had been told repeatedly about terrorist safe havens in its territory only recently made the decision that they were a threat to them.

“We had been saying it was. Others had been telling them the same,” she noted.

However, she said, the Pakistan forces are now committed to go after those “who have attacked their army headquarters, intelligence, the Islamic University in Islamabad, so many targets that really exemplify the authority of the state and the culture of society”.