America's relationship with Pakistan is very complicated, but a very important one as it helps in maintaining Washington's national security interest, the White House said on Wednesday.
"I can say that our relationship with Pakistan is extremely important. It is also complicated. And we have made that clear and been quite candid about that for a long time," the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily news conference.
"It is important to remember that the relationship is important because it helps our national security interest to maintain it. Pakistan has worked with us to go after terrorism and terrorists. More terrorists have been killed on Pakistani soil than in any other country," he said.
"So we continue to work with the Pakistanis. Sometimes we have difficult issues to work through with them, but it remains an important relationship," Carney said, but refused to respond to specific questions about leak of intelligence information by Pakistan shared by the US or the arrest of CIA informants by Pakistani officials.
"Without addressing that specific ranking, I would say that we acknowledge that it is a complicated relationship, and I think that's pretty candid. I think we have also made clear that the cooperation we do get is vital and essential to our war against terrorism and terrorists," he said.
"The US will continue that relationship for precisely that reason and when Washington has issues, it deals with them. Obviously, in the wake of the successful mission against Osama bin Laden, we have reached out and engaged with the Pakistani government and our counterparts in Pakistan at many levels, precisely because this relationship is so important," he said.
The Obama administration, he said is working constantly to improve the relationship, to improve the cooperation with Pakistan.
"Whatever number you pick on the scale of cooperation, that number represents significant success in combating terrorism and eliminating terrorists who threaten Pakistan, terrorists who threaten the United States and threaten our allies," he said.