US Cong agrees to freeze $ 700 mn in aid to Pak

Reflecting a bipartisan toughening of stand against Pakistan, leaders of a United State House-Senate negotiating panel have agreed to freeze $ 700 million in aid to Islamabad, a move that could put more strain on the troubled ties between the two countries.

In a statement issued late last night, negotiating panel of the House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously agreed to freeze the $ 700 million aid to Pakistan pending Pentagon's delivery of a strategy for improving the effectiveness of such assistance and assurances that Pakistan is countering improvised explosive devices networks in their country that are targeting collation forces.

The House Armed Services Committee said the National Defense Authorisation Act for the Fiscal Year 2012 also reached a compromise on $ 662 billion Defense Authorization Bill for the year 2012.

Besides stringing aid to Pakistan, the military spending bill also targets Iran's Central Bank and sets new hurdles for closing Guantanamo Bay prison for the Al Qaeda fighters.

The legislation will now face vote in both the Houses this week amid warnings by US President Barack Obama that he would veto any bill that required military custody of suspected extremists who target US.

Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of US foreign aid, and the freeze, when it is empowered by the Congress, would form only a small portion of billions of dollars of civil and military assistance it gets each year. But the freeze could lead to greater cutbacks as demands rise in the US to penalise Islamabad for failing to act against militant groups on its soil, who kill US soldiers in Afghanistan.

Locally made IEDs are the most effective weapons used by terrorists against US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan.