Thomas Nides on finding common ground with Pakistan
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Thomas Nides, U.S. deputy secretary of state for management and resources, joined The Daily Circuit Tuesday to discuss his recent trip to Pakistan. Nides, a Minnesota native, is the former CEO of Morgan Stanley.
One of Nides' main concerns is continuing the relationship with Pakistan as the United States works on destabilizing terroristic threats against America.
"We have to have a relationship with Pakistan, and Pakistan has to have a relationship with the United States," he said. "It's critical for everything we're doing, not only is it critical for the reconciliation that we're trying to attempt to do with Afghanistan, with the Taliban, but it's an important regional power as well."
Balancing Pakistan's sovereignty with America's national security is important, Nides said. When questioned, Nides was reluctant to directly answer Kerri Miller's questions about the use of drones in Pakistan.
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"We have a lot of tools which we always use in cooperation with the Pakistanis and with the security for the United States," he said.
ASKED AND ANSWERED
Miller: It sounds from what you're saying this morning that our concerns about national security take precedence over Pakistan's sovereignty, something that you say the United States is interested in.
Nides: I think there's a balance. I think we're very respectful of the Pakistani government. It's a democratically elected president, as you know they've had a long history of ups and downs in their elected officials, they've had obviously if President Zardari gets re-elected it will be the first president in the history to be re-elected. We respect the civilian government, we respect the military government as well, but our view of this is that we work cooperatively with the Pakistanis, understanding their sovereignty, and understanding our mutual desires here.
We have - the positive news here is that the Pakistanis have as much desire as we do to rid their country of terrorists. How we achieve those goals mutually is what we need to work out; how do we work together, we need to work out those details. But make no mistake, we have a goal which is to dismantle and disarm Al Qaeda, which we will achieve to do. We will work with the Pakistanis to achieve the ultimate of that goal.
